


Due Process

by Melyanna (darthmelyanna)



Series: west-gate: A West Wing/Stargate Crossover [13]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The West Wing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-01-30
Packaged: 2019-10-19 13:12:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 27,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17602007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darthmelyanna/pseuds/Melyanna
Summary: Cameron Mitchell gets to D. C. for a temporary duty assignment just in time to land on the sidelines of an impending scandal – this one involving his old friend Ainsley Hayes.





	1. Chapter 1

"No, you may not keep the baby T-rex!"

There were many things Kate Harper had had to say in her life that she'd never really thought would ever come up in conversation. Before today, the top line on that list had been a threat to invade Canada. And that had been surreal enough.

Cameron Mitchell, who was clearly a ten-year-old boy masquerading as a grown man and a colonel in the United States Air Force, was standing in front of her with the baby T-rex sitting at his feet. They were both looking at her rather pathetically.

The look on Cam's face was why she was off-world in the first place. He'd been coming to this planet with a group of archaeologists, intent on setting up a long-term dig site. Somehow he'd gotten it in his head that she needed to get out more, and this time, instead of coaxing her into getting ice cream with him in the middle of January, he'd convinced her to come to Jurassic Planet.

It had been really fun at first, too, right until the point where they discovered that the fossils being dug up weren't of extinct animals. Their first clue was the baby T-rex in question wandering up to SG-1 and apparently wanting to play. He did look like an awfully playful thing, but still, it was a dinosaur, for heaven's sake.

"Okay, just tell me why we can't keep him," Cam said to her, using his most plaintive tone once she'd dragged him and the animal into the nearest empty tent.

"Aside from the fact that our regulations pretty strictly say that we don't bring animals back?" Kate replied. "It's a dinosaur, Cam! What are you expecting me to say?"

"No," he told her, grinning while the baby dinosaur started to lick at her hand.

Kate rolled her eyes and started to leave the tent.

"You look cute with the pony tail," he called after her.

She stopped short and looked over her shoulder. "What part of 'I'm married' are you tripping over this week?" Normally she wouldn't have been this irritated – maybe even flattered – but today he'd made her announce that he couldn't keep a baby dinosaur and that kind of thing just made her cranky.

Cam shrugged. "Consider it a message from your husband, half a galaxy away."

Kate left the tent then feeling much as she had when she'd threatened to attack Canada if a bunch of cowboys didn't put their guns down. As usual, Cam owed her a drink.

Possibly several.

* * *

  
Admiral Harper was still a little cranky with Cam by the time they headed back to Earth. He wasn't sure he blamed her. Kate had a lot of stress in her life and this time he'd probably stepped over a line.

Then again, the baby dinosaur had been awfully cute.

Once they were back at the SGC and had handed over their weapons, the admiral removed her vest and said, "Colonel, I want a word with you in my office."

He tossed his vest at one of his team members and followed the admiral into the control room, up the spiral stairs, across the briefing room, and into her office. He shut one door while she shut the other. "Ma'am?" he prompted.

Kate walked behind her desk but didn't sit. "I have a TDA for you."

"Oh, come on," he protested immediately. More than seven years earlier he'd nearly died in Antarctica, and after spending months in rehab learning to walk again, some of the brass above him had attempted to send him through an endless cycle of temporary duty assignments. Only Jack O'Neill had been able put a stop to that.

Harper raised a brow. "Is that really what you wanted to say?"

"No, ma'am," Cam replied, standing a little more rigidly.

Kate nodded once. "Some defense contracts pertinent to our operations here are up for review," she explained. "I need someone there who's familiar with the technology, and you're the only person I've got with practical experience with our weaponry and spacecraft."

"What about General Carter?" he asked. "She designed damn near everything we use here."

The admiral sat down and started sorting the paperwork on her desk. "You don't require a translator fluent in technobabble, Colonel," she replied. "Which is why she's running Nellis and you're going to Washington."

Cam bit his tongue, knowing there was another reason for not sending Sam for this, aside from the fact that it was rather beneath her now that she sported a star on her shoulder. He liked her an awful lot, but she wasn't known for playing well with Congress.

"Well," he said, resigned to his fate, "I guess I can visit an old friend of mine while I'm there."

"That's the spirit," Harper replied with false cheer. She handed him a file. "College buddy?"

"College buddy's little sister, actually," Cam said. "Our paths cross every three or four years, we promise we'll stay in touch this time, and inevitably fail." Once, after the crash in Antarctica, he'd had a really good excuse for falling out of contact with her, but it wasn't like he could have explained to her what had happened. Heck, there at the beginning he couldn't even reach the phone.

Kate smiled a little. "Never pegged you as the love-'em-and-leave-'em type."

"Yeah, she's married to some Congressman."

Kate dropped the pen she had just picked up and looked at him incredulously. "What is it with you and married women?"

"I don't know!" he responded, waving his hands for effect. "You're both blonde and Republican and I just can't help myself."

Unlike the last time he'd started teasing her, she smiled and rolled her eyes. "You know, Will's not at all threatened by you, which has its own degree of hilarity."

"Yeah, this friend's husband doesn't like me very much." He paused for a moment, remembering where the admiral had worked before the SGC and Annapolis. "Hey, you might actually know her. She was White House counsel until just recently, and she worked for President Bartlet, too."

"Ainsley Hayes was your college buddy's little sister?"

"Yep. So you do know her?"

"No, she left the Bartlet White House about a year before I was hired. Besides, I never had much contact with the lawyers," Kate replied. "Well, the lawyers who were hired to be lawyers, anyway. But I know who she is."

"So when do I leave?"

"As soon as possible. You're needed in a meeting tomorrow morning."

Cam sighed, hefting the file up dramatically and heading toward the side door. "Well, thanks for the generous amount of time to get there." Kate glared at him as he opened the door and walked out. "See you whenever they're done with me."

* * *

  
Around eight o'clock, Ainsley Hayes finally gave up on getting the kitchen reorganized. The pantry was still a mess, but the refrigerator and most of the cabinets were straightened up and baby-proofed to her satisfaction. It would be a while before that was actually necessary, but she wanted everything in order before the baby arrived so she didn't have to worry about it.

And the baby was just a little more than a week away now. Her husband was away in his Congressional district in North Carolina, though he was supposed to be back in the DC area by the end of the week. Ainsley had a feeling that Seth would have told her to stop worrying about it, to let the maid take care of it, but she was a little glad he wasn't here to chide her about it. She'd always been the type to want to do things herself.

One hand on her aching back, she walked – waddled, really – to the nearest comfortable seat in the house and lowered herself down as gently as she could. Even though part of her brain was pointing out that she wanted Seth there for the birth of their child, she just wanted to get this experience over with as quickly as she could. She was really looking forward to what every woman had told her about pregnancy – forgetting as much of the unpleasantness as possible.

Ainsley got up eventually and headed upstairs, thinking about how great a long shower would be before snuggling into her warm bed. But when she walked past the bed, she noticed a paper sticking out from the drawer of Seth's nightstand. Curious, Ainsley came up to it and tugged the paper out.

It was a crumpled, handwritten receipt from one of the best jewelers in the DC area. Her birthday had been just a week ago, and Seth had given her a gorgeous diamond pendant. She'd been mildly irritated that he'd given her a necklace she wouldn't dare wear until after their child had outgrown the grab-and-chew phase, but the piece was so beautiful that mostly, she didn't care.

Clearly, Seth had had the receipt in his pocket and shoved it into the drawer there when he'd realized he still had it on him. Ainsley was about to put it back when something scribbled on the sheet caught her eye.

He'd bought two of that necklace?

* * *

  
Despite having an office there, C. J. Cregg was not often in Washington. These days she split her time mostly between Santa Monica and various places in Africa, still doing the aid work Franklin Hollis had hired her to do after leaving the White House. Charlie Young was still working for her, of course – she couldn't seem to shake him no matter how many better jobs she tried to steer the young lawyer toward – but these days he was running the operation on the east coast and dealing with politicians much more frequently than she was. Despite being Jed Bartlet's son-in-law, Charlie had far less political baggage than C. J. had.

But occasionally she was obliged to visit DC and sit in on meetings with dignitaries and people with money. Sometimes it was difficult to tell the difference between the two but today had been a good day. Even so, Charlie was trying to rush her out the door.

"Got a hot date tonight, Charles?" she asked as he turned her computer off for her.

"As a matter of fact, yes," he told her. "One of Zoey's friends is taking Sophie tonight and we're going to have a nice evening to ourselves."

She smiled as she stood up. But before she could reach for her jacket, the phone rang. "You can let it go to voice mail," Charlie said.

"What the hell, I'm feeling congenial," she remarked, hitting the speakerphone button. "This is C. J.," she said.

"C. J., oh, thank God you're in town," said a frantic female voice on the other end. "This is Ainsley Hayes. I don't know who else I would have called, but you've been through a Congressional investigation before –"

C. J. looked up at Charlie, whose alarmed expression must have mirrored her own. "Ainsley," she interrupted, "this might be a good time for me to mention that you're on speakerphone."

There was a heavy silence, and then Ainsley said in a small voice, "Is there someone with you?"

"Hi, Ainsley," Charlie said.

"Hi, Charlie," she replied, sounding quite frazzled now.

"Ainsley, are you in trouble?" C. J. asked, sitting down again. On the other side of the desk, Charlie covered his face with his hands. He'd gotten so close to leaving.

"Not as such, no," Ainsley said. "But I'm pretty sure my husband is."

C. J. had to think for a moment to recall who exactly that was. Seth Conrad, Republican Congressman from the North Carolina 11th, the western tip of the state, including Asheville. "What has he done?" she asked.

"I'm not entirely sure what all he's done, but I'm dead sure he's cheating on me."

C. J. gaped. "Ainsley," she said incredulously, "aren't you, like, enormously pregnant now?"

"Gosh, C. J., I hadn't thought of that!" Ainsley replied, at a particularly high point of Ainsley-ness. "Here I am waddling around and it never occurred to me that Seth decided to cheat on me while I'm as big as a house!"

"Ainsley, calm down," Charlie said. "Why'd you call C. J.?"

Ainsley sniffled loudly. "Because I need some help," she replied. "There's so much stuff I'm finding. And I know C. J. can exercise discretion while I figure out what I'm going to do about all this."

C. J. looked down at her desk. "Do you need me to come over?"

There was more sniffling. "Could you?"

C. J. got to her feet. "I'll be over there as soon as I can. Try to stay calm till I get there, okay?"

"Thank you, C. J.," Ainsley said, and then there was a click.

C. J. grabbed her jacket and put it on. "Well, Chuckles, have fun on your date," she said. "I'm going to wade into a cesspool of Republican scandal."

"It'll be just like old times for both of us," he replied. "Only thing missing is Danny trying to figure out what you're up to."

"I think I'd have to duct tape him to a chair," she said, sighing. "And possibly use chloroform on him."

* * *

  
It was after twenty-one-hundred hours by the time Cameron's flight landed at Andrews, but instead of going to the hotel set up for him, he took the rental car that had been provided for him and headed to Ainsley's house.

He'd been there only once, and once to her house (or probably more appropriately, her husband's house) in North Carolina. Seth Conrad didn't like Cameron. Cam wasn't sure why, but suspected it had something to do with the fact that Cam had known Ainsley far longer than Seth had. Seth had struck him as the type of man who didn't really want his wife getting much attention from other men, which made it remarkably strange that he'd married a woman who worked in such a male-dominated field.

Ainsley had seemed happy with him, though, so Cam didn't question it. He just made sure his visits to her were brief, and usually in some public place instead of at the house.

It occurred to him as he drove up her street that he maybe should have called first. But there were lights on in a couple rooms of the house, so he pulled in the driveway and headed up the front steps, his bags slung over his shoulder.

It seemed like he was standing on the porch for a while after he rang the doorbell, just staring at the old red brick house with all its perfectly proper landscaping. There was a horse farm on the other side of the property, and Cameron could smell the horses from here.

He heard footsteps within, and the door swung open. There was Ainsley, a white tissue at her nose, but that wasn't the most remarkable thing about her. She was pregnant, heavily pregnant. Cameron's jaw practically hit his boots.

For her part, Ainsley started bawling.

"Hey, hey," Cam said, opening the storm door and stepping inside, setting his luggage down. Awkwardly, he wrapped his arms around her as she kept on crying. "Ainsley, I know I haven't called in a while," he continued – something of an understatement since it'd been at least nine months since they'd talked. He was pretty sure he'd have remembered if she'd told him she was having a baby. "But really, it's not worth crying over."

She just started crying harder and clung to him, and Cam rubbed her back and kept his mouth shut. A couple minutes later, he heard someone coming down the stairs and started preparing himself for Seth's reaction to seeing them like this. But instead of Seth, a very tall woman with brown hair turned the corner at the foot of the stairs and said, "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm Cameron Mitchell. Old friend of Ainsley's," he said. "Who are you?"

"C. J. Cregg. She and I used to work together."

Cam nodded and turned his attention back to his friend, who seemed to have calmed down a bit. "Ainsley," he began, cautiously, "where's Seth?"

Ainsley let out a high-pitched wail and sobbed.

"That would be the problem," C. J. said quietly.

It took a while for Ainsley to calm down again, and at that point, Cam followed C. J. up the stairs to the office, his arm around Ainsley's shoulders. "Now," he said, while C. J. sat down at the computer, "would someone explain what's going on?"

Ainsley sniffled loudly, her hand on her belly. "I found a receipt tonight for a necklace Seth gave me a couple weeks ago," she said, wiping her eyes with a fresh tissue. "He bought two of them."

Cameron had known enough scumbags to know immediately what that meant. "He had a girl on the side?" he asked as gently as he could.

He half-expected Ainsley to burst into tears again, but she just looked down. "That's only the half of it."

Considerably alarmed, Cam guided Ainsley over to the loveseat on the other side of the desk. "Ainsley," he prompted.

She took a deep, shaky breath. "His mistress," she replied, "is the director of research at Cencal Technologies."

Cam frowned. "They're one of the biggest defense contractors developing for the SGC," he said.

"And Representative Conrad is on the House Armed Services Committee, not to mention Appropriations and Stargate Oversight," C. J. added.

Cameron raised both eyebrows. "Oh."

"Yeah," Ainsley said.

"So what are you two doing?" he asked, carefully.

Ainsley blew her nose and reached for the box of tissues, so C. J. explained, "I think Ainsley felt like the only way to know for sure was to go hunting for information. She called me a couple hours ago because it was starting to get overwhelming."

Without thinking about it much, Cam put his arm around Ainsley's shoulders again. "He didn't have anything password protected or anything?"

"He did," Ainsley said, leaning against him. "His passwords were on a piece of paper taped to the underside of the desk inside the top drawer. He knew I knew about it."

She sat up, wiping at her eyes with both hands. Cameron let his hand rest on her back. "Ain, were there any other women?" He hated to ask it, but he knew that for some, infidelity was a habit, not a mistake.

Ainsley swallowed hard and nodded silently.

C. J. looked between the two of them, then back at the computer screen. "We've only found evidence of one beyond the woman at Cencal," she said. "But that's enough to establish a pattern."

Evidently done with crying for the moment, Ainsley pushed herself up from the loveseat. "C. J., let's look at the books," she said. "No reason to assume there isn't more evidence in there."

Cam watched her while she walked to the other side of the desk, standing next to C. J.. She looked like a mess but he recognized the resolve in her voice well enough. "I'm not sure what all you're going to find here," C. J. said. "There's a stack of email we've printed out. That should be enough in court."

"I want an iron-clad case," Ainsley replied, a great deal of bitterness in her voice. "Besides, I want to start closing joint accounts before he can move anything, and I need to know what's where according to him."

Cameron only half listened as Ainsley directed C. J. through file directories until C. J. asked, "Which one of these files do you want?"

Ainsley looked at the screen. "Venture?" she said. "I've never heard of that one."

"Well, let's look at that one."

Cam got up to stand behind C. J. too. "Was he providing venture capital for a start-up?" he asked.

"Yeah, but we kept that in with our checking account as far as I know," Ainsley replied. "He wouldn't need separate books for that."

"Seth keeps the books?" Cam asked while the file loaded on the screen.

Ainsley nodded. "He's always been more on top of these things than I am."

Cameron frowned, wondering how exacting Seth Conrad was about finances.

Ainsley leaned forward, looking intently at the screen. "There's way too much money here," she said, astonishment in her voice.

"How much?" C. J. asked.

"Power of ten too much," Ainsley replied. "He told me he was investing five thousand a month in these guys, not fifty thousand."

Cam whistled lowly. "That's a huge difference."

"No kidding," C. J. said, looking at him like he was a bit of an idiot. "Ainsley, do you recognize any of the names of the people the money is coming from?" she asked, moving the cursor over the column of names.

Ainsley didn't answer immediately, and the other two turned to see her valiantly trying not to cry again. Cam rushed to the other side of the desk again to get the box of tissues. "Ainsley, honey," C. J. said, and Cam wondered if she'd been doing this all evening.

"He's getting ready to leave me, isn't he?" she sobbed. "He's keeping all this money a secret so when he divorces me I won't know it's there and he won't lose as much of his assets!"

Cameron wouldn't have believed that anyone else could have said all that while crying, but Ainsley always was special like that.

While she blew her nose again, which by now was bright red, Cam looked at the screen, curious. "Hey," he said, pointing to a name on the screen, "I know this guy."

"What?" C. J. and Ainsley said at once.

"This guy, Derek MacNaff," he said. "He was my CO right after I got transferred to the SGC. I spent about three months on an exploratory team before getting into the F-302 squadron. MacNaff was the team commander. He retired a couple years ago." Cameron frowned. "Ainsley, what's he doing giving your husband $30,000?"

* * *

  
It turned out that Mitchell recognized more names, and C. J. did too, many of them people who had given to the Hollis Foundation. Some quality time with Google revealed their connections to defense contractors and other people who really shouldn't be giving money to Congressmen, let alone in these quantities.

Eventually Ainsley had to use the bathroom, not that anyone was surprised by this. C. J., left alone with the uniformed man who'd just shown up on Ainsley's doorstep, felt a bit awkward with the silence that remained. "So," she said, "you're at the SGC?"

Mitchell nodded. "I'm commander of SG-1." After a brief pause, he added, "You worked at the White House, I imagine."

She smiled wryly. "It cracks me up that I was on TV every day for years and people don't recognize me. I was press secretary and then I was chief of staff."

The man walked back to the loveseat and flopped down. C. J. looked at the computer monitor idly. "So how do you know Ainsley?" she asked.

"Her older brother and I were roommates at UNC," he replied. "Dean's family was just twenty minutes away and I had a car. We spent most of our weekends doing laundry at the Hayes house."

C. J. smiled. "How old was Ainsley?"

Cameron sighed. "Twelve or thirteen when we met?" he said. "Just a kid."

"She'd probably object to that characterization."

"She did at the time." He chuckled. "When she turned fifteen I took her out to the back roads outside of town thinking I'd teach her how to drive. It went so badly she didn't speak to me for months. Didn't help that Dean insisted on going along for entertainment value."

C. J. laughed, trying to imagine Ainsley as a teenager. "Did she always talk like she does now?"

"She always talked a lot, but I think Harvard Law made her what she is today."

C. J. was laughing again when Ainsley walked in the room. "What's so funny?" she asked warily.

"The colonel was telling me how you two met," C. J. explained.

"Did he tell you about the time I nearly wrapped his car around a tree?"

Cameron shrugged. "More or less, yeah."

Ainsley leaned against the desk next to C. J. and looked down at her. "Do we know anything else?" she asked.

"We've got a list of people here who've given your husband money who really, really shouldn't be," C. J. replied, shifting back to business.

Mitchell got up and came around the desk again. "I know it's not pleasant, but I think we have to start thinking about the unthinkable," he told Ainsley.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's possible he's taking bribes," he explained, putting his hands on her shoulders. "There may be some perfectly innocent explanation for all this, but it sure doesn't look like it."

"To be honest it looks like a money-laundering scheme," C. J. put in quietly.

Ainsley pressed her lips together tightly for a moment. "We have to have more than this," she said. "We have to know what he was up to. I was White House counsel while all this was going on, and if he's really taking bribes... My career's on the line too, guys."

C. J. looked at the clock on the wall. It was already close to midnight. "Well," she said, "I've got time if you've got time."

Ainsley was determined, obviously, to keep going, and Cameron nodded. "Let's get this done."

* * *

  
By about two in the morning, they had examined Seth Conrad's financial records, email, schedule, and even text messages enough to make the conclusion almost inevitable. The congressman was taking money from people representing corporations he either regulated or secured contracts for. It was possible they weren't bribes, but it was hard to imagine what else it could be.

C. J. stood up and stretched. "And here I thought I stopped this nonsense years ago," she said. "I think I've done as much damage as I can. Ainsley, unless you need something else, I'm going home."

Ainsley looked up from her seat distractedly. "What? Oh, sure, you can go."

The three of them migrated out of the office and downstairs. Ainsley settled carefully onto the couch in the living room. Cam cast a concerned look at her but accompanied C. J. to the door. "Hey, thanks for the help," he said quietly.

"Well, you too, Colonel," the woman replied. "I'm not sure you could have timed an unexpected arrival any better."

He shrugged. "Sometimes I'm just lucky."

C. J. looked back in the room, where Ainsley was sitting listlessly on the couch. "She going to be okay?"

Cam nodded. "I think so."

Once C. J. was gone, Cam headed to the kitchen and brought back a glass of water for Ainsley. She took it from him wordlessly but didn't drink from it. "Talk to me, Ainsley," he said, putting his arm around her.

"Where do I start?" she asked rhetorically, choking a laugh that was almost a sob. "In the last six hours I've found out that my husband has been committing a felony and cheating on me. Honestly, I don't know which is worse. Then I went and called C. J. because she was the one person I could think of who'd understand all this and not want to cover it up or skewer Seth. I don't know why I didn't think about talking to Seth first or, I don't know, exercising spousal privilege or something. I can't even decide what I'm madder about, the bribes or the affair!"

She sniffed loudly, and Cam rubbed her shoulder. "I'm having his baby in a matter of days, and I don't want to see him ever again."

"Ainsley," Cam began, but he didn't know how to finish a thought. He couldn't blame her for being angry. He was pretty angry about it all too. After all, Seth had always been a little suspicious of Cam and his decades-long friendship with Ainsley. There was also the fact that Ainsley was finding out about this when she could be going into labor at any time. Cam couldn't bring himself to be very forgiving of a man who cheated on his pregnant wife.

That didn't even touch the criminal activity.

Ainsley leaned against him heavily, and when the still-full glass of water started to tilt, Cam gently took it from her and set it aside. She didn't respond, her breathing deepening, and he shifted her around carefully. Cam leaned back into the corner of the deep couch and settled Ainsley more or less on top of him, her belly pressing against his side.

He was just starting to drift off when he felt a weird pressure on his side. He was tired enough that it took him a while to realize that the baby was kicking. A sudden surge of pity caught him off-guard. This poor kid wasn't even born yet and had probably already lost its father.

Cam reached up and smoothed a lock of Ainsley's long, blonde hair back from her face. Then he rested his hand against her belly. The baby didn't stop moving, but eventually Cam drifted off anyway, just thankful that Ainsley wasn't alone tonight of all nights.

* * *

  
Ainsley awoke uncomfortably, the baby pressing against some part of her body she hadn't been aware of before reaching this point in her pregnancy. She was also sleeping on top of Cameron on the couch in the living room, which was definitely not made for sleeping.

Oh. Cameron.

Ainsley pushed herself up, rubbing her sore neck, and found Cameron snoring softly next to her. He woke up shortly after she moved, though, looked around, and groaned. "What time is it?" he asked.

She looked at her watch. "Six."

"Oh, goodie, four whole hours of sleep."

Ainsley moved a few inches away from him to let him get up more easily. He stood and stretched. Suddenly it occurred to her that with everything that had happened the previous night, they hadn't really talked much. "You never did say why you're here, Cam," she said.

Stiffly he walked over to where he'd dropped his bags the night before. "Admiral Harper sent me to advise a committee that's reviewing some defense contracts," he replied, hefting up a garment bag and duffel bag. "I have a meeting at oh-eight-thirty at the Hill."

"On the Hill," Ainsley corrected automatically, picking up the glass of water Cam had brought her the previous night and then left on the coffee table.

"What?"

"On the Hill." She took a drink. "You said at the Hill. It's on the Hill."

"Well, I have to say," he replied, "I'm not sure you can call anything around here a hill. But then, I live in Colorado where there are, you know, mountains."

Ainsley just rolled her eyes.

He cleared his throat. "I probably need to press my shirt."

Slowly, she got to her feet. "I'll show you the laundry room."

After showing him where everything was, Ainsley headed upstairs to take a shower. She'd never actually gotten around to that the night before. When she came back downstairs, her wet hair up in a towel, Cameron had finished with the iron and was in the guest bathroom with the shower running.

She had just finished getting her breakfast ready when Cam came into the kitchen, his light blue shirt hanging open over his undershirt and his darker blue jacket in his hand. She forced a smile as he came up to the island countertop. "I don't have many breakfast options," she said. "Seth's not big on breakfast."

"As long as there's something other than cantaloupe, I'm fine," Cam replied.

Ainsley got a bowl out of a cabinet for him. "Cantaloupe?" she repeated.

"It was back in freshman year," he said. She passed a box of wheat flakes and the bowl to him. "The second or third time Dean and I ended up staying the night at your house, your mom asked me what I liked to eat for breakfast. I was having cantaloupe that morning and told her whatever she had in the house was fine, I wasn't picky. She took that to mean I liked cantaloupe and then proceeded to serve it to me two or three times a month for four years."

This time, Ainsley did laugh. "That's Mom for you."

Cameron started pouring cereal into the bowl. "How's your mom doing these days, anyway?"

"Pretty well. She'll be up here in a couple days."

The reasons for that were obvious, and an awkward silence fell as they came closer to the subject they hadn't addressed yet this morning. "So," he said carefully, "when is your husband supposed to be back?"

"Friday," she replied.

"Have you decided what you're going to do yet?"

Ainsley picked up her glass of milk and brought it to her lips. "I need to talk to a lawyer," she said quietly.

Though he watched her carefully, he didn't ask which topic she was going to talk to a lawyer about. She wondered if he thought of the two issues separately – she certainly did. At this stage, Seth's adultery and his apparent criminal activity were two different things and needed to be dealt with accordingly. As soon as Cameron left, she was going to get in touch with a lawyer and start working on divorce proceedings. She knew Seth was cheating on her, and she wouldn't have her child in a situation like that.

The other question was more complicated.

What she'd said to Cam the night before was true. Spousal privilege meant she didn't have to testify against her husband in court, though she wasn't sure if she'd given that up by telling first C. J. and then Cameron. But what would she do about it? She couldn't let Seth get away with this, could she?

After a few awkward minutes, Cameron spoke again, changing the subject to something far more pleasant, but Ainsley, in the back of her mind, started thinking about how odd it was that the dissolution of her marriage was somehow the easy decision here.

* * *

  
Cameron was reluctant to leave Ainsley alone that morning, but she assured him that she would be fine. He was less than convinced but left anyway, having seen enough of her last night to realize that fine or not, she was going to get things done.

He gave himself extra time to get to his meeting on the Hill and was still almost late. A page led him into the basement, and Cam was briefly reminded of secret midnight poker games in the laundry room of his freshman dormitory. He was greeted by a bunch of suits, most notable among them, Andrea Wyatt, the tall, red-haired woman who had co-chaired the hearings on the SGC some years ago when the program was disclosed at the end of President Bartlet's administration. "Colonel Mitchell," Wyatt greeted. "I have to say I'm surprised. I was expecting Admiral Harper to send someone a little lower ranking."

Cameron shook hands with the rest in the room. "The admiral said you needed someone with practical knowledge of a wide spectrum of technology in service at the SGC," he replied. "I'm one of the few who's been on the ground in an SG team as well as flying F-302s."

When the introductions were finished, the legislators and Cam settled in on either side of the long table in the middle of the room. "As some of you may have noticed," Congresswoman Wyatt said, "this is not exactly the House Stargate Operations Oversight Committee." Cameron glanced around the room and decided he really should have been aware of that already. "We have here two Democrats and two Republicans from the committee. We also have with us three representatives from the Department of Justice, as well as Colonel Mitchell of the SGC."

"Enough with the theatrics, Andi," said a pudgy, balding man as he took off his glasses. "You told us we were here to review contracts related to Stargate operations."

"A few weeks ago I got a call from DOJ," Wyatt replied. "They had a source stating that something fishy was going on with contracts held by Cencal Technologies."

It took every ounce of restraint in Cam's body to keep from snapping his head toward the congresswoman. Seth Conrad's mistress was from Cencal Technologies.

Was this the _proof_ he and Ainsley and C. J. had been unable to unearth the night before? Was the link right in front of his face?

The meeting was going to continue, of course, his own bewilderment notwithstanding, so Cameron forced his brain to compartmentalize things. He didn't have to contribute much beyond his knowledge of the operations at the SGC, rattling off numbers about how often they replaced machine guns, how frequently F-302s were completely overhauled, and how often such things actually needed to be done. Meanwhile, he expended a fair amount of brain power trying to figure out what he needed to do with this information. He was sure that Ainsley needed to be aware that an investigation into her husband's actions was already underway. He was also relatively sure that he didn't need to be the one in the room for this investigation, but he had no idea how to tell Andrea Wyatt what he knew without Ainsley's consent.

The truth of the matter was, he couldn't.

When they eventually took a fifteen-minute break, Cam pulled his cell phone out and paced through the building trying to find a place with halfway decent reception. Finding a place in the lobby where he could get a signal, he dialed Ainsley's cell and listened impatiently to the ringing.

Her voice mail picked up, and he cursed so sharply that a woman walking by jumped and glared at him. Cam ignored it, waiting for the beep so he could record his message. "Ainsley," he said, "it's Cam. We've got to talk. This is really... I don't know how big this is but I've just got to talk to you. Can we meet somewhere for lunch?"

He hung up then and hurried back to his meeting, trying to focus more than he had before the break. It wasn't until his cell phone vibrated and he checked to see Ainsley had sent him a text message that he broke his concentration.

Surreptitiously, Cam pulled his phone out and flipped it open. The message was brief. Ainsley would be waiting in a coffee shop a few blocks away.

It was past thirteen-hundred hours before anyone called for a lunch break. Cameron hurried out as quickly as was dignified, got in his car, and headed in the direction Ainsley had given him.

She was actually waiting for him outside the little store, a white paper bag in one hand, her other hand holding a light jacket together just above her belly. Cam pulled over and he reached over to open the door for her as best he could. Ainsley got in the car quickly. "I got us lunch," she said, balancing the bag on her knees as she got her seat belt on. "This didn't sound like something you'd want to talk about in public."

"It's not."

She directed him to a nearby parking deck. Cameron found an empty spot, and Ainsley handed him one of the two sandwiches in the bag. They both started eating, and Ainsley asked, "So what happened in your meeting?"

He paused for a moment, trying to figure out how to tell her this. "Cameron?" she pressed.

"Ainsley, I was told I was coming here to help a Congressional committee with contracts that were up for review and renewal," he said. "That's not what this meeting is. It's four members of Stargate Oversight and an investigation by the Justice Department."

Ainsley blanched. "Seth's on that committee," she said softly.

"I know." Cameron reached over and took her hand. "Ainsley, they think there was some foul play involved in the awarding of contracts to Cencal Technologies. Nothing huge, just that Cencal got orders that were bigger than anything we needed at the SGC, or in Atlantis. It was systematic."

She looked away. "Do they have a suspect yet?"

"No," he replied. "This investigation seems to be preliminary. They haven't gotten to a point where they can narrow it down to anyone."

Ainsley rested her elbow on the door frame and leaned her head against her hand. After a minute or two Cam realized that she'd started crying. In the last eighteen hours he'd seen her cry more than in the nearly thirty years he'd known her. The previous night, she'd started crying at nearly every new revelation about her husband's activities, though she'd managed to push through the tears and continue, so he shouldn't have been surprised when this time, she swallowed hard and said, "Don't say anything about this to them yet."

Cam nodded, knowing she needed time and space to figure out what she was going to do and how she was going to do it. In the meantime, while she dug in her purse, he asked, "How did your meeting this morning go?"

She pulled out a tissue and blew her nose before answering. "Better than I expected," she said. "I thought I might have to file for divorce in North Carolina because that's where we were married and that's where his residence is, but since I'm registered to vote in Maryland, I can file here."

"Is that going to cause delays?"

Ainsley shook her head. "North Carolina was going to make me wait a year after separating to file for absolute divorce. Given Seth's... what he did, I don't have a waiting period in Maryland."

A little startled, Cam reached over and laid his hand on her knee. "Ainsley," he said, "are you sure you want to make this decision so quickly?"

Her lower lip trembled but she didn't start crying again. "We'd been having problems," she replied after a minute. "We were fighting over a lot of stupid things and sometimes I wondered... but then I found out I was pregnant and we talked and we decided we were going to try to do better. Before I was showing we were fighting again."

Some intensely protective streak of Cam's reared up, and it was with difficulty that he kept from digging his fingers into Ainsley's leg. "He wasn't... hurting you, was he?" He rather doubted that she would stay in a relationship that got abusive, but he figured the question had to be asked.

Ainsley shook her head. "No, he never hit me. He's barely touched me since we found out about the baby. I haven't had sex in months."

Cameron immediately bit down on the inside of his cheek, knowing that whatever he might say in response to that would be totally wrong. Ainsley seemed to realize she'd made him uncomfortable. "I'm sorry," she said, laying her hand on her belly. "That was more than you wanted to know."

He pulled his hand away from her knee and stared at the steering wheel. "Yeah."

To his surprise, she laughed just a little. "It's true, though," she added after a moment. "Seth's never been the type to be very affectionate physically. He's never been the type to cuddle in bed or anything. I guess I just figured he wasn't too comfortable with the idea of having sex with a visibly pregnant woman."

Cameron kept staring in front of him, knowing he needed to keep his mouth shut. He and Ainsley had only ever been friends, but the idea of a man not finding her attractive was completely foreign to him. Right now she looked uncomfortable with her body and her eyes and face were red from so much crying, but at the same time Cam thought she looked as beautiful as ever. That her own husband had been avoiding her even long before this point was baffling.

"It all makes sense now," Ainsley concluded quietly. "He's had a girl on the side as long as I've known him. I guess it's kind of remarkable it took this long for him to get caught."

"Even idiots get lucky."

He cast a glance at her and saw a weary look on her face. "I suppose."

There was an awkward silence between them, made all the more strange because Cam couldn't remember being awkward around her in years. "Have you talked to your mother yet?" he asked.

"No, why do you ask?"

"I don't know," Cameron admitted. "I guess I just thought she might come up earlier than she planned if you asked her."

He left the rest for her to fill in. After another long pause, she said, "I parked my car on the next level up. Can you drive me up to it? My feet hurt."

Without hesitation, he started the car up and took her to the next level. As he waited for her to get in her car and start it up, he made a note to himself to be a good guy that evening and massage her feet.


	2. Chapter 2

When Ainsley got home, she did as Cam had suggested and called her mother. Her mother was shocked to hear Ainsley's news, but once that moment had passed she was already making changes to her flight to get there as soon as possible. As it happened there was an open seat on a flight late that afternoon, so the conversation was brief.

Afterward, Ainsley sent a text to Cameron asking him to come to the house after his meeting was done. She didn't expect a reply, and in fact she stretched out on the couch and took a nap. The sky was getting dark before she awoke again, and that was only because the doorbell was ringing.

Feeling more rested, if not actually better, Ainsley got up to answer the door, finding Cameron on the other side. He looked at her in concern, much as he had the previous night once he'd gotten past the shock of seeing her pregnant. She still felt a little guilty that she hadn't told him about that at any point before he showed up, but it had been almost a year since they'd talked.

"Come on in," she said, stepping aside.

"I was glad to get your message," he replied, coming inside and taking his hat off. "Round about three o'clock I remembered I'd left all my stuff here."

Ainsley nodded, smiling a little. His bags were all still in her living room.

"I called Mom," she told him, walking to the coffee table to retrieve the watch she'd taken off before her nap. "She changed her flight. She'll be here in an hour and a half."

"Do you want me to drive you to the airport to pick her up?"

She nodded. "I was going to ask you to."

He put his hat back on. "I'll take you to dinner first. I don't know about you but I'm starving."

"I was taking a nap," she explained. "I haven't been awake long enough to be hungry, but I will be once we get somewhere with food."

Cam grinned at her. It was the first time he'd done that since arriving. "There's my girl," he said, something he hadn't said to her since she was a kid. "You're always hungry."

On the way to the airport they stopped at a little café that had good sandwiches but better soups. The weather was turning colder and Ainsley wanted something hot. Over dinner, they decided that Cameron should just cancel his hotel reservation and stay with her. "Seth may be coming back to town on Friday but he's staying somewhere else," she told him quietly.

"Hey, I'll throw all his stuff out on the lawn for you if you want," Cam replied.

Ainsley just smiled and continued eating her soup.

* * *

They met Ainsley's mother in the terminal, where she was shocked to see Cameron after so many years, and as pleased about his rank as his own mother had been when he'd been promoted to bird colonel. Agatha Hayes was in her late sixties, but aside from her fully silver hair, she didn't look much different than she had years ago when Cam had spent his weekends in her house.

Once they'd gotten home, the three all hung around in the kitchen getting Agatha up to speed on what had happened. Ainsley had told her part of the story but not all the details, as her mother had been rather anxious to get to D. C. to see her. They had only just begun to discuss her options when Ainsley yawned hugely, and both Cam and Agatha urged her to go to bed.

Ainsley didn't put up a fight, just got a small glass of water. When she was finished with it, she told Cameron where he could find sheets and blankets, since he would be sleeping on the couch, intentionally this time.

Mrs. Hayes laid a hand on Ainsley's belly. "You two okay?" she asked.

"We're fine, Mom," Ainsley replied, kissing her mother on the cheek. "Good night."

As she walked past Cam to leave the kitchen, she grasped his hand. He squeezed back, but he was surprised when she kissed his cheek too, lingering long enough for him to catch faint whiffs of her shampoo.

He and Agatha waited until they'd heard Ainsley reach the top of the stairs before saying anything. "She does seem to be holding up well, all things considered," Agatha remarked quietly. "She's never been the type to fall apart completely, but I was expecting her to be a little less calm. I was expecting iambic pentameter at least."

Cam snorted softly. "She wasn't so together last night," he said. "She was crying through the whole process of digging through Seth's records, but then, that didn't stop her either."

Agatha shook her head. "I can't believe Seth would do this to her. Their relationship wasn't perfect by any means, but I thought he loved her more than this."

"It sounds like he fooled a lot of people, Mrs. Hayes," Cameron remarked. He hadn't cared much for Seth, but he never would have thought the man would cheat on Ainsley either.

They were quiet for a little while till Agatha asked what time it was. Cam looked at his watch and replied, "Twenty-one – sorry, nine o'clock."

"You look like you haven't slept in a couple days."

"Well, yesterday I got back from a five-day trip to a planet where there were actual dinosaurs," he said. "There were some jet-lag issues to begin with, and then last night I only got about four hours of sleep."

"Dinosaurs?" Agatha asked.

"Yeah. Long story."

"Then I'll tell you what I used to tell you and Dean whenever you stayed the night," she said. "Get some sleep. You'll thank me in the morning."

"Thanks, Mrs. H.," he teased, but she was right. He needed to get some rest.

They headed up the stairs, Cameron to the linen closet and Agatha to the guest bedroom. On his way back to the living room, Cameron stopped briefly outside Ainsley's door, which was open a few inches. She was already asleep, hugging a pillow to her chest.

A fresh wave of pity hit him, but he turned away from the door, going back downstairs. She would be getting pity from everyone soon enough, so that wasn't what she needed from him. She needed him to be as supportive as he could of whatever decision she made.

In the bathroom downstairs he changed out of his uniform and into something he wouldn't mind wearing in front of Ainsley and her mother in the morning. He made his bed on the couch in the living room and was asleep almost the moment he lay down. It had been a long couple of days.

* * *

The next morning, Ainsley woke up to the smell of breakfast being cooked downstairs. Remembering that her mother had come to town the previous night, she managed to get out of bed, pull on a robe, and wander down to the kitchen.

"Good morning, Ainsley," her mother said from behind the stove. "Sleep well?"

Ainsley rubbed at her eyes and yawned. "About as well as I have since I got this big," she replied. "What time is it?"

"Almost nine. You got a good eleven hours of sleep at least," Agatha replied. "Cameron left a while ago."

Ainsley nodded. She wasn't surprised. But before she could say anything else, the phone rang and she went to pick it up. "Hello?"

"Ainsley."

She froze for a moment. She should have been expecting this to happen. "Seth."

Her mother dropped something upon hearing that name. Ainsley turned around and walked away a little. "You cooking?" Seth asked.

"No, Mom decided to come to town earlier than we'd originally planned," she replied coolly. "She's making breakfast."

"I'm glad to hear that, actually," he said. "I'm going to be stuck here another day. I have to reschedule my flight to Saturday evening."

Ordinarily Ainsley would have merely been annoyed. Now she wondered if Seth was really in North Carolina or somewhere with his mistress. She didn't think he was dumb enough to be seen with another woman in his own Congressional district. Unable to come up with a real response to his information, she just said, "Whatever, Seth."

"You mad at me, Ainsley?" he replied, an edge to his voice which was not foreign to her, but at the same time ratcheted up her temper. She was hardly the unreasonable one here.

"No," she replied tersely, belatedly realizing that that was a bald-faced lie. Though "furious" was closer to how she felt about him right now.

"Look, if you go into labor, I'll do whatever I can to get back before the baby's born," he offered.

"Yeah," she said. "I've got a lot of stuff I need to do today."

"So do I." Ainsley clamped down on a vicious thought at that remark. "I'll talk to you later, hon."

"Bye."

Ainsley hung up without hearing whether or not he responded. Feeling incredibly drained from the conversation, she walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. Her mother brought her a plate of pancakes and a glass of milk. "I'm shocked you could keep your cool talking to him."

She picked up her fork and started in. "So am I."

* * *

When Cameron got out of his meetings, he went back to Ainsley's to find that Agatha had cooked dinner for them. The two women had been busy during the day. Whole shelves of books, music, and movies were in boxes. Cam spotted some clothing in boxes as well. Ainsley was packing up her husband and throwing him out.

It was more than most politicians' wives did in situations like this, but Ainsley was not the average politician's wife.

In all seriousness, he offered to haul all the boxes out to the lawn (they were supposed to get a thunderstorm overnight, and he thought that was fitting), but Ainsley declined. The neighbors would obviously figure out what was going on if she did that, and she didn't want anyone calling Seth and telling him that all his belongings had been thrown out of the house. She said she hadn't figured out how she was going to break it to him yet that she was kicking him out, but she was seriously contemplating just letting him be served with the first legal filings.

"Besides," she added, a dark look coming over her pretty features, "I've got something else I've got to do tonight."

While Ainsley went upstairs for something, Agatha quietly said, "Cameron, she's got a doctor's appointment tonight."

"Don't pregnant women usually have lots of appointments this close to the end?"

"This isn't about the baby."

Agatha had to explain to him then why Ainsley would need a last-minute, late-night appointment. If Seth had been sleeping around all this time, then Ainsley needed to be tested for anything and everything that could be transmitted sexually.

Cameron had had a lot of moments in the last couple days when he'd paused long enough to get angry at Seth Conrad for what he'd done to Ainsley. This time, though, he had to leave the room before his mouth got the best of him. There were no words, clean or otherwise, for the rage at the thought of what that man was putting Ainsley through.

He grabbed clothes and changed in the bathroom. By the time Ainsley came downstairs again he was already wearing his leather jacket and his shoes. She looked at him oddly. "You don't have to come."

"I know," he replied. "But if you want me to I will."

For a long time Ainsley just stared at him, standing on the bottom step of the staircase. Cam stared back, not sure if there was something else he was supposed to say. Then he walked to the stairs and wrapped his arms around her. She rested her chin on his shoulder and he rubbed her back. "Anything you need from me, okay?" he said softly in her ear.

She shuddered, and he wondered if she was starting to cry again. But then she pulled back and nodded silently. "Mom's going to be there with me," she said, "but I suppose a little more moral support wouldn't hurt."

Cameron took her hand. "Anything you need from me," he repeated.

The drive to the doctor's office was nearly silent. Cameron drove, meaning Ainsley had to give him directions, but mostly she sat in the back seat with her mother and held her hand. When they got there, the place was deserted except for a nurse and the doctor. The doctor gave her a sad smile. "Ainsley," she said. "I'm so sorry about what's happened."

Ainsley murmured, "Thank you, Doctor Holt."

She looked at Agatha. "I'm going to guess you're Ainsley's mother," she said. "She looks like you."

Mrs. Hayes shook the doctor's hand, and then she turned to Cameron. "Laura Holt," she said.

"Cameron Mitchell," Cam replied, shaking the woman's hand. "I'm an old friend of the family."

"Well, let's head on back," the doctor said.

Cam had really intended to stay out in the waiting room and flip through magazines while Ainsley had this done, but she grabbed his hand. This was likely to be a fairly miserable experience for her, so he didn't blame her. Instead, he came with her to the exam room and helped her get up on the bed. He and Agatha stood on either side of her while the nurse came in with the test materials.

The doctor went through a series of questions about Ainsley's sexual activity. Cam had figured this was a standard practice and was part of the reason he would have preferred to wait outside. She answered all the questions quietly but without hesitation. Afterward the nurse sent her to the bathroom with a sample container.

Agatha went with her, leaving Cam with the doctor and nurse. "Did you stay late at the office for this?" he asked.

The doctor nodded. "Ainsley explained the situation to me. Giving her some privacy for this seemed like the least I could do."

Ainsley and her mother came back after a few minutes, Ainsley with a grimace on her face. "I swear, this kind of thing is the only plus to having a kid sitting on your bladder," she said, holding the specimen jar with two fingers.

"Ainsley, you always have to pee," Cam said, without thinking.

She looked a lot like she wanted to stick her tongue out at him.

The nurse took the sample from her without comment, and Cam helped her back up on the exam bed. Doctor Holt looked down at her chart. "Ainsley, you already had the first blood test for your HIV screening done about six months ago," she said. "We'd have been calling you in for the second test anyway."

"You already got tested for HIV, Ainsley?" Cam said.

"It's recommended by the CDC that all pregnant women, whether they're high-risk or not, be tested for HIV," the nurse answered. "There are treatments that can prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but we can't do anything if we don't know."

The doctor nodded. "Now, Ainsley, your first test came back negative," she said. "You've indicated that you haven't been sexually active in some months, but it's still possible that you could be positive now."

Ainsley's jaw was tight and her back rigid. "Well, let's get the test over with," she told him.

The nurse was putting on gloves, but Holt held up her hand. "I have a big concern we should discuss," she said. "HIV can be passed from mother to child in utero, in which case we might be too late should you be infected, but it can also be transmitted during delivery."

Ainsley frowned. "What are you getting at?"

"I think you should have a C-section as soon as possible," the doctor replied. "It's too risky to wait for the test results to come back."

"How long will the test take?"

"Three, four days, usually," she said. "If I call the lab and explain the situation, they'd probably rush it."

Ainsley was rubbing her hand against her belly, something which Cam had noticed was a bit of a nervous habit. "We can do the instant test tonight, right?"

Doctor Holt nodded. "We'd have the results in twenty minutes, but you know that test isn't as accurate."

"I know," Ainsley replied. "But let's do the instant test, and if it comes back positive I'll let you do the C-section as soon as you want. If the instant test comes back negative and I go into labor before the other results are back, I'll let you do the C-section. But I'd rather have this baby naturally."

The doctor was in the middle of agreeing to that plan when the nurse gently interrupted, "There's also the risk that breastfeeding presents."

Ainsley looked at the woman sharply. "What?"

"If you have the baby before the test comes back, you probably need to avoid breastfeeding," the nurse clarified. "That can transmit HIV as well."

Ainsley started shaking her head. "No," she said, voice trembling. "No. Do you think I didn't do my research on this? I want to nurse my baby!"

"Ainsley," the doctor started, but she cut her off.

"Can we just go ahead and draw blood?" she said. In the last two days Cam had seen enough to realize she was about to start crying. "I'm not agreeing not to nurse my baby tonight."

The doctor and the nurse exchanged glances before the doctor nodded. Ainsley held out her left arm, and as the needle went in she turned away, toward Cam on her right. He took a step forward, resting his arm around her shoulders, and she buried her face against his chest as she began to cry, trying desperately not to shake.

He looked up to see that Agatha had one hand on her daughter's knee and the other rubbing her back. Cameron looked down and grasped Ainsley's right hand in his. Given that he couldn't legally kill her bastard husband for putting her through all this, it seemed like the least he could do.

* * *

Ainsley didn't sleep well that night. A combination of everything that had happened racing through her mind and the baby being unusually restless kept her awake for a long time. Part of her didn't mind, because she had an awful lot to think about.

She couldn't have been asleep very long when noises downstairs woke her. She glanced at the clock and saw it wasn't quite six o'clock yet. It was probably Cameron downstairs, so she threw on a robe and went down to find him.

He was fixing himself a bowl of cereal in the kitchen, and when he saw her he smiled softly. "You look a bit rumpled."

"Good morning to you too," she replied. "Did I hear the front door open?"

Cam nodded. "I went for a run," he explained. "I hope you don't mind, but I got your key out of your purse."

Ainsley rolled her eyes. "I'll forgive you this time."

"Can I get you something for breakfast?"

She thought about it for a minute. Pregnancy hadn't been that much of an adventure for her in terms of weird cravings, but that might have been because she'd spent most of her life since puberty hungry for something specific. "What I really want is ice cream, but that probably wouldn't make a very good breakfast."

Cam pursed his lips and shook his head.

"A bowl of cereal is fine."

He went about fixing it for her, and even though he was a guest in her house, Ainsley let him. These days she was more than willing to let an old friend wait on her. "If you're feeling up to it," he said, handing the bowl and a glass of milk to her, "you and your mom and I could go out to dinner tonight. There's a pizza place you've told me about for years."

"Actually," she said, "I was going to ask you when you think your meeting is going to be over." He frowned at her, and she added, "I need to talk to Congresswoman Wyatt and I'd rather not go through her office to make an appointment."

For a long minute Cameron didn't look at her. Then he picked up his cereal bowl, poking it absently with his spoon, and said, "I'm not very good at sneaky stuff."

She wondered about the truth of that, knowing what she knew about his job. "I'm not asking you to do anything illegal or even clandestine. I just need you to pull her aside and tell her that I need to speak to her."

"How's that going to work? I mean, when will you talk to her?"

"Hopefully this afternoon," Ainsley replied. "I want to get this out before Seth gets back on Saturday –"

"I thought you said he'd be back today."

"It's Saturday now. He called yesterday."

Cameron growled, literally, and had the situation been different Ainsley would have smiled. "Anyway," she said, "I want to get this out before he gets back. Of course, he'll probably come back early, but I don't want him back and finding out what I know before I have a chance to tell someone."

"Ain, I really didn't follow that," he replied.

She looked down at her breakfast. "That's okay. I'm never intelligible when I'm nervous."

At that he laughed. "I'll believe that." He paused to look at his watch. "Well, to answer your original question, Congresswoman Wyatt thought we might be done early today. I think she was thinking about skipping out early for the weekend."

Ainsley nodded. "Will you ask her, then?"

Cameron nodded back immediately, reminding her of what he'd told her the night before, but his face was filled with concern too. "You're sure this is what you want to do?" he asked. "I don't think this is something you can back out of."

"Yes," she replied. "I'm sure."

* * *

During the first break of the morning, Cameron came up to Andrea Wyatt and quietly said, "Ma'am, may I have a word in private?"

Wyatt seemed quite surprised by this, no doubt because Cameron was there strictly as a technical advisor. The rest of the room was clearing out, so she dispatched an aide to get her a fresh cup of coffee. "How can I help you, Colonel?" she asked once they were alone.

Cam paused a moment, at a loss for where to begin. "I imagine you know Ainsley Hayes," he said. When she nodded, he continued, "She's an old friend of mine. I've actually been staying at her house while I'm in town."

"Oh?" Wyatt replied. "Has she had the baby yet?"

"No, not yet. Any day now." He cleared his throat, then sighed. "Listen, I told her what these meetings are about, and she wants to talk to you."

The congresswoman suddenly looked angry. "Colonel, she's married to one of the members of this committee –"

"I'm aware of that, ma'am," Cam interrupted. "He's the one responsible for Cencal and a couple other companies getting these... generous contracts."

That stopped Wyatt cold. "How do you know that?"

He bit his lips for a moment. "The night before the first of these meetings, I got to her house and found her digging through Seth's email and his financial records," he explained quietly. "She suspected he was having an affair, and she was right. But it wasn't just an affair."

Wyatt sank into her seat. "So you've known this for days and you're just now telling me."

"Listen, ma'am, she asked me not to say anything until this morning. She's pregnant and she just found out her husband has been cheating on her for years –"

"I'm sorry, Colonel," the woman said abruptly. There was an awkward pause. "You said she wants to meet with me?"

Cameron nodded.

"I was thinking of stopping at lunchtime anyway," she continued. "Have her get here at noon."

He nodded again and went to retrieve his phone from his coat pocket. "Yes, ma'am."

* * *

Ainsley decided to take a cab to Capitol Hill, knowing Cameron had driven his rental car there that morning. She arrived five minutes early, but he was already waiting for her outside, and escorted her into a conference room in the basement, where Andi Wyatt was waiting alone.

"Ainsley," the tall, red-haired woman greeted. "How are you doing?"

She tried to smile, but it probably came off as more of a grimace. "About as well as can be expected."

Andi nodded and had her sit down in the nearest chair. Cam sat down on her left while Andi sat at the end of the table on her right. "Colonel Mitchell told me some of what's happened," Andi began. "I'm so sorry. I had no idea Representative Conrad was..."

Ainsley shook her head. "A lot of people had no idea. Including me."

Andi touched her hand briefly before getting down to business. "Ainsley, I need you to tell me what you know."

Ainsley nodded and pulled up the bag she brought with her, getting out the evidence she'd printed off Seth's computer. She'd backed all of it up as well and had a stack of discs in the bag if they were needed. Slowly, she walked Andi through the progression of what she knew and how she'd discovered it.

At the end of the mess of paperwork, Andi pinched the bridge of her nose and looked at Cam, who had remained silent throughout this procedure. "Colonel, could you step outside for a moment?" she asked.

Cameron looked at Ainsley first, and she nodded. He left, closing the door behind himself, and Ainsley turned back to Andi. "What is it?"

"Ainsley, are you sure you want to do this?" Andi asked, a gentleness in her voice which Ainsley had never heard in their many dealings.

She decided not to answer directly. "Can you make the case without me?"

"Not at the moment, but that doesn't mean we won't find something else." The older woman laid her fingers over Ainsley's briefly. "No matter how I handle this, the Democrats are going to rip your husband to shreds."

That much had already occurred to her. Despite everything, including the fact that her marriage had never been what it should have been, she did love Seth. But she was so tired of finding out new things that broke her heart, and part of her just wanted to be done with him, even though she was carrying his child.

"I know it all sounds like I'm taking this fast," she said carefully. "And maybe I am, but.... Andi, what else can I do?"

"You can let us keep investigating," Andi began, but Ainsley cut her off.

"No, I mean how can I let this sit on my conscience?" she said. "How could I go around knowing he's done this and I can prove it and not say anything?"

"Ainsley, the Democrats may go after Conrad but the Republicans are going to come after you," Andi replied firmly. "There are going to be people calling you all kinds of names and they're going to be saying you're doing this because he was cheating on you."

Ainsley was quiet for a moment, just watching Andi. "Is that why you think I'm doing this?"

"I don't know why you're doing this," Andi replied, after a pause of her own. "I wouldn't blame you if you want revenge, but I'd be worried about the appearance of you airing out your grievances like this. On television no question or comment has to be relevant."

Ainsley felt her eyes starting to fill with tears. Annoyed at her hormone levels, she blinked rapidly, trying to hold it all back. "It's the right thing to do," she said. "Seth broke the law. He also broke the vow he made to me, but he broke the law. I have a responsibility to uphold here, even if everyone thinks I'm doing this because of what he did to me."

"As long as you're sure," Andi said.

"I'm sure." Ainsley's voice was quiet, but firm.

Andi took the paperwork and the disc copies. Ainsley trusted she knew how to break the story, and as the papers slid into the congresswoman's briefcase, she realized that her part in this saga was either swiftly coming to a close, or was just about to get much, much worse.

She and Andi exited through different doors, and Ainsley found Cameron waiting for her outside. He shot up from the bench he was sitting on. "You all right?" he asked as she came into the hall.

She nodded. "Andi's taking care of it." For a moment she thought about asking Cam to take her somewhere for lunch, but then she remembered that she didn't know when Andi was going to make her move. It would probably be before the end of the day. "Let's go home," she suggested instead. "I'm hungry."

Cam just put his arm around her shoulders briefly, propelling her down the hall, and chuckled softly.

* * *

Once back at Ainsley's house, everyone ignored the television, knowing when the story broke by when Ainsley's cell phone started ringing every few minutes. She took a few calls, but for the most part, she let it go to voice mail.

That night the ladies went to bed relatively early, but Cam stayed up in the kitchen, his laptop out on the island as he read the day's news. So far reactions were splitting pretty evenly down party lines, and so far no one seemed aware of Ainsley's involvement in bringing it all to light.

He had moved on to checking his email, where he had six messages from Vala and twice that number from Admiral Harper, when Ainsley came down the stairs and into the kitchen. "Oh, I didn't know you were still up," he said. "I was just catching up on some stuff."

Ainsley shook her head. "I couldn't sleep," she replied. "The baby's wide awake."

Cameron watched her as she walked through the kitchen and got a glass of water, his eyes mostly on her stomach. Her pajamas were rumpled and she moved awkwardly when she walked back to his side. "Did Vala send you anything interesting?" she asked.

"I wonder sometimes why the base doesn't restrict her internet access," Cam said. "Today's best is a link to a website about me."

"About you?"

"Yep. You'd figure there'd be a site for Sheppard, but..." He trailed off, staring at the website Vala had linked him to. "Wait, there's an affiliate."

Ainsley giggled, covering her mouth with her hand to muffle the noise, and she leaned against him. "Oh, that's too much."

"Yeah, it is." Cameron closed up the laptop and looked at her. "So this may seem like an odd time to ask, this but – Do you know if you're having a boy or a girl?"

She looked at him for a moment and started giggling again. He wasn't sure what had brought this on, but he wasn't going to complain. Given the choice, he'd rather see her laughing than crying, and he'd seen too much of the latter lately. "I don't," she said, once she was able to talk again. "Just didn't seem like a big deal."

"Well," he replied as she leaned away from him, "I guess you'll find out soon enough."

She started to say something in agreement, but then Cameron did something he hadn't done since that first night, when Ainsley was already asleep. He turned on his stool and laid his hand against her belly.

Immediately he knew what she'd meant earlier about the baby being awake. Every few seconds he felt a pressure against his hand. Without thinking much about it, he ran his palm over her stomach, feeling the baby moving.

He was about to pull away when Ainsley grasped his other hand and pressed it against her belly too. He just stared for a long time, listening to the sounds of them breathing. Her body was so warm, and there was something amazing about feeling her child kicking within her.

Cam looked up and saw how wide her eyes were. Her breathing was a little labored, and as he realized how very close they were he licked his lips without thinking about it. Her hand tightened on his, and what happened next was unbelievably wrong. In the days and weeks to come he'd blame it on his own tiredness, on the emotional strain that had been on them both, but the truth was he did it because he wanted to.

It wasn't like he'd never thought about kissing her before, but this time he actually did it, cupping the back of her neck and pulling her down to him. She smelled of mint and soap, and her skin was smooth and warm. At first it was just lips brushing against lips, but then his thumb brushed her ear and she whimpered. That tiny sound was enough to shred his remaining restraint, and he tugged her closer.

The kiss turned sloppy, open-mouthed and heated, but Cameron kept one hand against her belly. Ainsley leaned into him, her hands on his shoulders as he threaded his fingers into her hair. One of them made a throaty noise – he couldn't tell which – and all he could think about was how much he didn't want to stop.

The heater came on, and the sudden sound made Ainsley try to pull away. Cam resisted mindlessly, his mouth trailing wet kisses down her neck when she turned her head away. She moaned loudly, her own resistance starting to melt, and he realized what he was doing. As quickly and gently as he could, he pushed her back, trying to get her out of his reach. Her lips were red and wet now and he had to look away.

"I – I don't – I – should –" she stammered, and Cam was stunned mostly because Ainsley couldn't get a complete sentence out of her mouth.

"I'm sorry," he said, almost reflexively. "I – that – I'm sorry."

He met her eyes cautiously, and for a long time they just stared. He couldn't get his brain around all the permutations of how wrong this was. She was married; she was pregnant and probably had some interesting hormonal issues; he was taking advantage of her emotional distress. Yet at the same time, part of his brain stubbornly rejected any feeling of guilt.

She mumbled something about getting to bed. He saw her blush and flinch once the words were out of her mouth, belatedly realizing that that might sound like an invitation. Cameron wished her a good night's sleep, saying he was exhausted as well. He wasn't sure she believed him, but she made her way upstairs, leaving him alone in the kitchen.

It was a long time before he even tried to get to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Ainsley went to bed with a headache and woke up with one. It was all Cameron Mitchell's fault.

Back when she was a kid and her brother Dean would bring Cam home with him on weekends to do laundry, she'd had the biggest crush on him. He was tall and handsome and charming and generally didn't treat her like a little girl. He didn't quite treat her like a grown-up, but he assumed she was capable of logical thought, and she'd fallen for him hard. Over the years, she'd pretty much gotten over him, but occasionally she'd wonder what it might be like if they ever got the timing right, if they were in each other's lives when neither was involved with someone else.

Since Ainsley had met Seth, that kind of wondering had stopped. They'd been introduced at a Congressional Christmas party and talked the evening away. He'd been waiting years to meet her, he said, a woman whose sense of duty went beyond partisan preferences. The next night Seth had called her, and they were seriously dating before long. He wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they made a good couple and Ainsley was happy. Even when they argued back then it had never seemed so bad. When he'd asked her to marry him, she'd answered him almost before he'd finished the question.

She loved her husband. Their marriage had been far from perfect even discounting the affairs she now knew about, but she'd always been willing to stick by him because she believed him to be a good man.

Now, though, she wanted nothing to do with him, and that was breaking her heart.

Maybe she had turned to Cameron the previous night for comfort. Ainsley didn't really know why she'd done it, and more than anything else it had left her confused. She shivered just thinking about it. She knew Cameron would never hurt her in any way. He'd always been so gentle with her, and kissing her he'd been no different. Ainsley had seen a healthy dose of lust in his eyes – which just seemed so wrong given how pregnant she was, but her own hormones were going crazy and she'd never wanted sex so much in her life as she had the last couple weeks – but that didn't scare her. She trusted Cam, and in that moment nothing had seemed more natural than letting him pull her down to him so he could kiss her for the first time. The previous night she'd spent more time than she cared to admit wondering what he would be like in bed if he was that passionate and focused in kissing.

But she needed to stop thinking about it. She was still married to Seth, even though she was already in the process of divorcing him. The Air Force didn't often prosecute men for adultery anymore, but that regulation was still on the books. By virtue of his position in Stargate Command, Cameron had made political enemies, and Ainsley's years of working in Democratic White Houses had made her plenty of enemies as well. There were likely people who would love to throw that regulation at Cam, just to see if something would stick to either of them.

She was still pondering this when the phone rang. It stopped ringing and she assumed someone had answered it or the person on the other end hung up. A few minutes later, her mother came in to tell her that Seth had called, protesting his innocence, worrying about the baby, and wanting her to know he'd be back in town shortly. Ainsley groaned into her pillow, and once her mother was gone she made a phone call of her own.

* * *

  
Cameron's meeting that morning was obviously cancelled, and as soon as was reasonable, he got out his cell phone and called Admiral Harper. She answered the phone after a few rings, and he said, "Morning, ma'am."

"Good morning, Colonel," she replied. "You're aware of the time difference?"

"I'm sorry, but I figured this couldn't wait," he said. "I imagine you've seen the news in the last twelve hours?"

"I don't live under a rock, Cameron." She sighed. "This isn't exactly what you were thinking of when you said you'd visit an old friend, is it?"

"No," Cam replied. "I showed up here the night she found out, and then the next morning I found out that the meetings I was here for were about Conrad, though they didn't know it yet."

"Wait, what?" Kate said. "Your meetings were about Conrad? They told me it was a Defense contract review."

"That was a cover," he explained. "Justice was investigating contracts."

"Wow," Kate said. "Of all the gin joints."

"I know." Upstairs he heard water running, so he assumed Ainsley was out of bed. "I think my job here is pretty much done," he said, wondering how to get around to what he wanted to ask.

"How's Ainsley doing?"

Cameron sighed. "All things considered? She could be a lot worse. There's some more stuff that hasn't hit the news yet, but it probably will."

"Was he cheating on her?" Kate asked, quite directly.

"Admiral," he began.

"Colonel, I've spent a lot of my life around politicians," she interrupted gently. "I'm not saying they're all like this, but there's a reason for the stereotype of the lying, cheating, backstabbing politician. Besides, I do have some sources."

Cameron was silent for a while, but he knew he could trust Admiral Harper. Not to mention the fact that someone was bound to check court documents and see that Ainsley had filed for divorce. "Yeah," he said. "She's nine months pregnant."

Kate swore under her breath. "I hope she's divorcing the bastard."

"She is." He heard noises, someone coming down the stairs, and realized he needed to get on the ball. "Admiral, I'm going to have to let you go, but there's something I wanted –"

"Do you want leave time?" she asked abruptly.

"How did you know?"

He could imagine how she would shrug in response. "Will heard something else," she explained. "He heard Ainsley may have been instrumental in the DOJ making the case against her husband. Is that true?"

By that point, Ainsley had come down the stairs, and from across the room Cameron met her gaze. "Yeah," he said.

"I understand some of what she's going through," Kate said into his ear as he continued to stare at Ainsley. "The rest I can only imagine, but if nothing else she needs friends right now."

"Yeah," he repeated.

Ainsley turned away then, walking to the kitchen, and Cam had to resist the urge to chase after her immediately. "We'll work out the details later," Kate said to him. "For now, you're on leave. Jackson's been after me to let him go bother Weir and Sheppard in Atlantis, anyway. I might try to convince him to take Vala with him."

Cam almost smiled. "Good luck with that."

"You too."

He hung up the phone then and followed after Ainsley. She was seated at the kitchen table, almost like she was waiting for him. "I was talking to Admiral Harper," he explained. "She's going to give me some leave time."

"You're staying longer?" she asked tentatively.

He waited a moment. "Is that a problem?"

"I don't know," she told him. "I'm just so confused."

Ordinarily Cam might have reached for her hand, but given what had happened the last time he touched her, he was pretty sure he should keep his hands off of her. "Ainsley," he said with deliberation, "I don't know what to say."

She looked toward the window and got up with some difficulty. "There were two of us involved last night, Cam," she replied.

"Yeah, but..." Cautiously, Cameron got up from the table too and walked to the other side of the window. "Ainsley, I don't ever want to make you cry."

His words didn't have the effect he wanted. She covered her eyes with one hand and her shoulders shook. Instinctively, he took a step toward her, but then just rubbed her back, not sure how she would react to any other contact. To his surprise she leaned into him, and all he could do was hold her.

For her, he could put aside his own conflicted feelings. He had to.

She pulled herself back together fairly quickly, though, and drew away from him. "Seth called and talked to Mom," she said. Cam stiffened at the mention of her husband. "He's going to be here in about an hour. I called C. J. and asked her to be here when he shows up."

"He's going to be angry, isn't he?"

Ainsley nodded. "Right now he doesn't know I turned over evidence against him. I really don't want to be alone with him when I tell him that."

* * *

  
Ainsley was standing in the living room, leaning against one of the big columns between that room and the kitchen, when Seth arrived. C. J., who'd gotten there only ten minutes earlier due to D. C. traffic, was sitting on the couch with her mother and Cameron. There were boxes of Seth's stuff in various places around the room, something Seth didn't notice until he and two aides were already well inside the door.

Seth looked at Ainsley in surprise, then at the boxes, and then cast a darker look at C. J. and Cam. He gestured to the aides to go back outside and looked at Ainsley. "Honey?" he asked. "What's going on?"

Her jaw was tight, and she couldn't seem to speak. What she really wanted to do was throw something at him, but that wasn't going to do much good.

She tried several times to say something, but finally the phone rang and saved her from talking to him. She grabbed her cell phone and walked away into the kitchen. "Hello?" she answered.

"Ainsley, this is Doctor Holt," said the woman on the other end. "You'll have your test results mailed to you, but I got a copy from the lab this morning and thought you might like to know."

Ainsley leaned against the counter, suddenly nervous. "Yes?"

"You've got nothing to worry about in this regard, at least," the doctor replied. "All the tests came back negative. Provided we don't have any other complications, you'll be able to deliver the baby naturally."

"Oh, thank God," Ainsley said, covering her mouth with her hand briefly as she struggled not to cry again. "Thank you for calling me."

Holt reminded her of the appointment they had for the following Tuesday, and when Ainsley hung up she turned around to see Cam staring at her in concern. She set her phone down and walked back into the living room, deliberately talking only to the people situated on the couch. "That was my obstetrician," she explained. "My test results came back. I don't have anything to worry about. I'm not going to give my baby AIDS during delivery because my husband is a cheating bastard."

"Ainsley!" Seth yelled, and finally, she snapped.

"Don't you dare try to defend yourself!" she cried, turning to him. "I've read the emails to Dianna, with the long, silky hair and the big brown eyes and the body that's perfect and a mile long. I've read how much those weekends in Monterey mean to you and how every moment you spend with me is torture. How you think about her when you're in bed with me. How you're just waiting for the right time to get out of this dead-end marriage and be with someone who understands you."

Seth turned slightly paler while she spoke, but he composed himself quickly. "Ainsley, it was a mistake," he tried.

"No, it wasn't," she said, more calmly than she felt. "There was another girl before her. Probably one before her too. That's not a mistake, Seth."

"Ainsley." Seth looked awkwardly at the three audience members on the couch, and then closed the distance between them. "Listen, Ainsley, it's... Yeah. I can't deny that. There have been other women, and I'm sorry. If you think this is over and you want a divorce, I won't fight it. I just... I need you, darling. I need you right now."

He laid his hand against her belly, but Ainsley pushed him away and backed up. The moment Seth laid a hand on her, Cameron shot up from the couch, though he settled back down after a few moments. "You don't need me," Ainsley bit out. "You've never needed me."

"You've seen what they're doing to me on the news, Ainsley," he shot back, jabbing a finger at the television. "I can't get through this unless you're there with me at my press conferences."

"You want me to do the stand-by-your-man routine?" she replied, almost laughing. "You really don't know me at all, do you?"

She started to leave the room again but he called after her, "Whatever happened to 'for better or worse'?"

By the time she turned around, Seth had realized his mistake. "'For better or worse'?" she repeated, completely incredulous. "What happened to 'forsaking all others'? You're going to throw our wedding vows at me like they ever meant anything to you?"

"Ainsley," he tried, but she wouldn't let him.

"No, Seth, you don't get to talk your way out of this one," she told him. "This isn't better or worse, Seth. That's 'richer or poorer' or 'in sickness and in health'. This is you willfully destroying the life we could have had. I don't know why I didn't see this coming, but I guess that doesn't matter now. Why did you bother marrying me? Was it just politically convenient for you in your district to marry someone with a reputation for playing well with Democrats?"

He opened his mouth to rebut that charge, but she wouldn't let him. "You're sleeping with an executive of a company you oversee. You were accepting money from them and half a dozen other contractors and laundering it through a business investment that's probably going under now thanks to you. You're going to jail, Seth, something my child will never be able to live down and it hasn't even been born yet!"

"Well, what is it you want from me, Ainsley?" he demanded. "You can have the house, the cars, whatever you're angling for if you'll just help me get through this!"

"You don't get it, do you?" she replied. "You committed a crime, Seth! And I turned over the evidence they needed to convict you!"

For several moments, no one spoke, and no one moved. Then Seth stepped toward her and Cam stood up again, grabbing Seth's shoulder. Seth shoved him back and Cam did something he'd probably wanted to do for a while. He punched Seth in the face.

Seth was knocked to the floor, and Ainsley turned to the other man in the room. "Cameron!"

"What?" he said, flexing his fist.

"You just hit a member of Congress!" she almost shrieked. It wasn't so much that she minded him hitting Seth, but this was hardly the time.

Realization dawned on his face. "I'm betting Admiral Harper's not going to like this when I explain it to her."

Ainsley couldn't even come up with a response to that, and she turned her attention back to her husband, who was picking himself up off the floor. He glared at Cameron but evidently decided that Ainsley was the one who needed to be dealt with. "The party's going to tear you apart for this," he said, venom in his voice.

"I wouldn't count on it," she replied.

"So that's it?" he asked. "You turn me in and walk away from me?"

Ainsley nodded. "I'm done crying over you, Seth."

Then, with some difficulty – her hands were slightly puffy today – she pulled her wedding ring and engagement ring off her finger and flung them both at Seth's feet. He didn't bend to pick them up, just stared at her a moment longer before storming out of the house.

As soon as he was gone, the other three came up to her. "Ainsley, are you okay?" her mother asked.

Ainsley took a shaky breath and nodded. "I'm not sure why I threw the rings at him."

"I'm not sure either," C. J. said, "but it was dramatic."

Cameron was standing a few steps back from the women, frowning and not quite meeting her eyes. Ainsley sighed softly, remembering what had happened the previous night, just a few feet away. Their friendship could survive this, she was sure, but only if she didn't shut herself off to him.

Deliberately, Ainsley walked up to him and hugged him, burying her face in his chest. After a moment, Cam wrapped his arms around her as tightly as possible, and great knots of tension in her body she hadn't been fully aware of began to loosen. He was warm and solid and smelled wonderful.

He was stroking her back with one hand and cupping the back of her head with the other when she finally smelled something other than him. She turned her head and saw that her mother and C. J. had left them alone, and what she was smelling was food.

Ainsley looked up at Cameron, who hadn't let go of her. "You hungry?" he asked.

"When am I not?"

She could feel his chuckling in his chest, and he brushed a kiss against her forehead. "Come on," he said. "Let's get breakfast."

* * *

  
Cam wouldn't really say things got worse from that point. Things just went sideways.

C. J. left after breakfast, citing a lot of work she had to do while she remained in town. Meanwhile, the calls to the house continued to the point where Ainsley simply unplugged the landline phones.

The previous night, when the story was breaking, they hadn't had the television on at all, but now Ainsley evidently decided to watch what was going on. After taking care of some business of his own, Cameron found her in the living room, her feet up on the coffee table as she ate junk food and watched CNN. He sat next to her and looked at what she was eating. "Cheetos?" he said. "And... white chocolate?"

Ainsley's only response was to offer him the bag of chips.

CNN on Saturdays was usually fairly worthless, but a scandal was a scandal any day of the week. Pundit after pundit talked about Seth Conrad's record, his campaign based on strong ethics and family values, his insistence that people had to get the crooks out of Washington before anything could be done. They showed footage of him with Ainsley at various campaign events. At those moments, Ainsley would turn with interest to whichever bag of snacks she had in hand.

Around noon, after they called for pizza, things got interesting.

Seth's press conference to protest his innocence started off predictably enough. Cam might have even found it amusing, as Ainsley kept guessing how he would answer the reporters' questions and was usually right. But six or seven questions into the conference, a reporter asked, "Congressman, can I ask where your wife is today?"

Ainsley set her snack food aside and licked her fingers clean absently. Seth shifted from one foot to the other. "As many of you know, my wife Ainsley is pregnant," he explained. "Her due date is next Wednesday. We decided that she would be better off staying at home."

Cameron looked to Ainsley. She was nodding. "Not true, but a good answer."

He was on the verge of asking her how she could be taking a professional interest in her husband lying about her on television, but another question came up from the same reporter. "As a followup to that, are you aware that Ms. Hayes filed for divorce this week?"

They could hear the murmuring that swept through the reporters. Ainsley had the beginnings of a wicked little smile on her face. "I wondered if someone looked into court records," she said. "Yes, Seth, are you aware that I'm divorcing you?"

"You must be mistaken about that," Seth replied. "We spoke this morning. She's disappointed about these allegations but –"

"Excuse me, Congressman, but the papers filed this week list adultery as the cause."

Cameron leaned forward and watched the television while Seth took his glasses off, looking down at the podium. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to address this. When a marriage hits the rocks it's never easy to deal with. But I hope we'll all remember that there are two sides to every story like this."

The reporters all jumped on that one, and eventually one voice came out over the rest. "Sir, are you saying your wife is to blame for any of this?"

"I'm just saying, let him who is without sin cast the first stone."

Cam's jaw could have hit the floor, and he dearly wished he'd been at the press conference so he could punch Seth again. Seth was trying to paint himself as a victim, both of vicious partisan politics and of his very pregnant wife. Cam really couldn't believe the gall of the man.

On his left, Ainsley was just sitting there, frozen, staring at the television like she was watching a train wreck. Even when her cell phone on the coffee table rang, she didn't move, just stared at the television as Seth tried to answer the mob of questions that rushed in after his comment. Cameron reached for her phone and answered it. "Hello?"

There was a pause on the other end, probably because a man had answered a woman's phone. "Hi, I'm looking for Ainsley Hayes," the man on the other end said. "I'm Jim Davis, her lawyer."

Cameron took the phone away from his ear and said, "Ainsley, it's your lawyer."

She held out her hand for the phone without looking at him, and he gave it to her. "Jim, are you watching this?" she asked, visibly rallying herself to deal with the situation. "Yeah, I think we need to say something."

There was a long pause, and then Ainsley started dictating. "I'm very disappointed by my husband's remarks. He knows the definition of slander as well as I do, so I'm puzzled as to why he would insinuate something he knows to be flatly untrue.

"A closer perusal of the court documents will reveal that his mistress is an executive of Cencal Technologies, a company which has been granted numerous defense contracts by committees of which Seth is a member. Those contracts are also the focus of the investigation which was made public yesterday. Seth's attempt to cast himself as the victim in this situation is absurd."

Ainsley listened for a few moments, and Cam started gathering up the junk food. "Well, we can wait a couple hours, see how the media responds to this," she continued. "Tinker with the language. We'll talk it over again before giving it to a reporter."

As she hung up the phone, Cameron got up, intending to take the food back to the kitchen. "Where do you think you're going?" Ainsley asked.

"I'm taking this to the kitchen," he replied, holding up the chips and candy.

"Why?"

"Because the pizza should be here soon?"

"What am I supposed to eat till it gets here?"

Sighing melodramatically, Cam came back to the sofa and handed the snacks over. A couple minutes later, when Seth's press conference had finally ended and CNN went to commercial, Cam asked, "So how much do you want to kill him right now?"

Ainsley cast a murderous glare at her Cheetos. "I'm not sure he's worth killing right now," she replied. "Honestly, this whole thing has me questioning my sanity."

Cameron was silent for while, deathly curious but wary of poking a sleeping dragon. Ainsley didn't get mad at him often, but he knew she could drum up a righteous anger in seconds, and that was probably worse now that she was pregnant and already emotionally overwrought.

Finally she sighed. "What do you want to say, Cameron?" she asked.

"What makes you –"

"I've known you forever, Cam. I know when you want to say something."

He looked at the palm of his hand for a minute, at a scar he'd gotten a few years ago in a sticky combat situation. "Why did you marry him?" he finally asked. It was an immediate relief to ask, after years of curiosity, but at the same time he was worried about how she would react.

She set the snack food aside and rested both hands against her belly. "Because I love him," she said quietly. There was something raw and pained and honest in her voice, something that made Cam just want to hold her till all of this went away. "I thought he was a good man. I thought he loved me. I thought 'for better or worse' meant that there'd be lean times, but the good times would be worth struggling through the bad times. I thought he'd take care of me, even though I didn't need someone to take care of me. I thought we could grow old together. I thought I'd never want anyone else, and neither would he."

She squeezed her eyes shut and began to shake. Almost on instinct Cameron wrapped his arm around her shoulders but she shook her head. "No, no, I – I'm done with this. I'm not doing this anymore," she said, more for her benefit than his. She took a deep, gasping breath. "He's not the person I thought he was. I don't know if he changed, or if I never really knew him. I just... I thought he was right for me. Maybe it was foolish of me to think anyone in this day and age could have the marriage my parents had."

Cameron released her shoulders, but laid his hand over hers. Her fingers were cold, and he rubbed them gently. "Ainsley, I'm pretty sure if you asked your mom, she'd tell you she and your dad didn't have a perfect marriage," he said. "It doesn't have to be perfect to be happy. And I'd hate to see you walk away from this marriage thinking there isn't a man out there who'd be faithful to you and – and love you."

He swallowed hard after the last bit, worried about how she might take it and thinking inevitably of the previous night, when he'd kissed her. Ainsley didn't look at him and didn't say anything, but eventually she laid her other hand on top of his. For a long time they just sat there like that, until they heard movement upstairs and Cam withdrew his hand, thinking that Ainsley's mother was about to come down the stairs. As they shifted away from each other, Ainsley said, "Well, there was one thing about that press conference that amused me."

"What was that?" Cam asked, a little bewildered.

"Did you see how much makeup Seth had to use to cover up that black eye you gave him?"

* * *

  
Ainsley's lawyer called back later in the day, and they hammered out a final version of her statement, which Jim released. That alone would probably be enough to propel a Friday story into the next week. Ainsley decided to avoid the television again till Monday.

Having packed up the vast majority of Seth's belongings, on Sunday Ainsley moved on to getting rid of some of her own, intending to donate much of it. The diamond necklace that had sparked this whole debacle was among the first things marked to go, but there were other things too.

She had just gotten some formal dresses into boxes when the doorbell rang. Ainsley stood up, her hand on her back, and heard her mother downstairs talking to someone. The other voice was female, and then her mother asked the person to come in and introduced her to Cameron.

Then she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and she walked out of her bedroom in time to see Donna Moss get to the second floor. "Donna," she said, deeply surprised. She hadn't seen Donna since before Donna and Josh's third child was born, just a couple months earlier. "What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Ainsley," Donna replied. "How are you doing?"

Ainsley opened her mouth for a moment, and then she shrugged. "How am I supposed to be doing?"

Donna smiled like she didn't know what she was supposed to say. "Can we sit down somewhere?"

Ainsley blinked a couple times before leading Donna into the bedroom. "Sorry about the mess," she said.

"I understand," Donna replied. "I've had three children, and every time I ended up purging the house like this. I didn't even have such a good excuse as yours."

"I've mostly been getting Seth's stuff together," Ainsley explained. "I'm not sure when I'm going to get rid of it, though. He was here this morning but that wasn't really a good time for him to start hauling his stuff out."

"He was here this morning?" Donna asked as they sat down in the chairs under a window.

Ainsley nodded. "He... He didn't know what I knew yet. He thought he could deny it all and I'd be there with him."

"Does he not know you?" Donna quipped, but the joke hit a little too close to home. Ainsley had to look away, biting her lower lip to keep it from trembling.

Donna awkwardly put her hand on Ainsley's back. "Listen, I don't really know what you're going through," she said. "But if you need anything..."

Ainsley nodded again, sniffling. "Thank you, Donna," she said. "Do you want to help me pack up some stuff to get rid of?"

Donna laughed. "Sure."

Ainsley decided shortly thereafter that she was done with the closet. As they moved on to her dresser, she said to Donna, "So when did you go back to work?"

"Yesterday," Donna replied. "Practically my first assignment is talking to you."

"You're here on assignment?" Ainsley asked, opening her unmentionables drawer. Odd as it sounded, she figured some of her lingerie was going to bring back memories if she didn't get rid of it.

Donna nodded. "President and Mrs. Santos asked me to come here and convey... I guess condolences isn't the right word. But they feel terrible about what happened, and they wanted you to know if there's anything they can do to help –"

Ainsley almost smiled. "I appreciate it." She gestured at a trash bag sitting on top of one of the boxes, and Donna grabbed it and whipped it open. Ainsley started sorting out negligées and bras and other bits of clothing she associated too closely with her husband. It was far too soon to be thinking about anyone that way – she quickly squashed the thought of everything about Cameron – and if she did get involved with someone again, she wasn't going to wear the little nightgowns Seth had always liked. Said he liked, anyway.

Donna either understood what Ainsley was doing or decided not to ask. "So," Ainsley said, "how's Josh doing?"

Glancing at her watch, Donna said, "Right now he's probably pulling his hair out and wondering what he did to deserve our kids. They're a little highly strung."

"Gosh, I never would have guessed."

"Christmas is coming," Donna explained. "The older ones are doing their best to stay good while ratting out the other. And the baby's a baby. She's only two months old."

"You're making me glad I'm probably only going to have this one," Ainsley replied, pausing a moment to look up at the other woman.

"You think your kid isn't going to be high-maintenance?"

Ainsley rolled her eyes. "I have low expectations, believe me."

While Ainsley pulled bras from the drawer and stuffed them into the trash bag, Donna said, "By the way – for what it's worth, I told Josh that his life was going to get very unpleasant if he lets the party start dragging your personal life through the mud during all this."

That surprised Ainsley considerably. "Really?"

Donna nodded. "Don't get me wrong, we're not taking the high road completely here," she explained. "I think it's safe to assume that the North Carolina 11th is up for grabs next year if not sooner, and we have a real shot at taking the seat. But it's not right to use someone's marital problems like this, even if they're in some way relevant. Besides, you've done too much for us over the years for us to use your life that way."

Ainsley stepped back to sit on the bench at the end of the bed. She had to stop for a minute and catch her breath. Donna sat down too and leaned against her a little. "I'm really sorry about all this," Donna said. "I can't imagine how unfair it is."

"No, you really can't," Ainsley replied. "I mean, I have a lot of friends in town, but most of them are Seth's friends too. I'm pretty sure there's going to come a time pretty soon when none of them are going to take my calls. All the friends I'm going to have left are Democrats and Cameron."

"We're really not that bad, Ainsley," Donna told her. "And that colonel friend of yours is pretty hot. Why would you complain about him?"

"He may be cute as hell but he's incredibly annoying."

"He seemed kind of sweet."

Ainsley sighed. "He is."

* * *

  
Ainsley woke up early Monday morning. She had a hearing with the judge at ten o'clock, where she would be requesting that the records of the divorce be sealed. Though the most that was in the papers now was the allegations of adultery on his part, Ainsley was fairly sure that eventually the fact that she had turned him in would come up.

That piece of information was going to devastate Seth, which he surely knew. It was also something the media would eat up, so she wanted to keep that as leverage in the negotiations ahead. Fearing that she might be waylaid at the courthouse by some reporter wanting her to comment on Seth's scandal, Ainsley decided to give herself plenty of time to get ready. Her back was aching, but that wasn't terribly unusual.

At seven-thirty, she opened a drawer in her dresser and realized, with no small amount of horror, that there were no bras inside.

She grabbed her robe and made her way downstairs as quickly as she could. Cameron was just coming back in from his run. "Ainsley," he said, frowning. "Something wrong?"

"Did the trash collectors come already?" she asked breathlessly. The baby was pushing up with utter disregard for Ainsley's respiratory abilities.

"Yeah, I brought the bins back up from the street. Why?"

Ainsley exhaled, irritated with herself when her eyes got watery. It wasn't fair that she was getting insanely hormonal over stuff like this.

"Ainsley?" he prompted, his alarm evident in his voice and sudden stiffness.

"Oh, I," she began, but then felt tremendously silly for what had happened. How was she supposed to explain this?

Then, of course, her mother came downstairs and found Ainsley almost crying. "Honey, what's wrong?" she asked, coming up to her and putting her arm around her shoulders.

Ainsley took a deep breath. "Yesterday when Donna was here I was going through my clothes and things and started throwing stuff away and I'm pretty sure I accidentally threw away all my bras."

There was complete silence for a few moments, and then Ainsley cautiously looked at Cam. He looked down abruptly as he started to shake. He was trying not to laugh, she realized, and it was the last straw. She burst into tears.

"Oh, honey," her mom said, hugging her.

But Ainsley was too far gone to react well to any kind of consolation, even when Cameron sobered and tried to help. She tried to get out something about how she needed to see the judge this morning, but what came out of her mouth probably couldn't be classified as human speech.

She managed to stop short of hysterics, but only because she had some sense of dignity left. Once she could focus on things again, Cameron looked sufficiently contrite for having caused this in the first place. Sort of. Ainsley, tired of standing already, moved to a chair and carefully lowered herself down. "Ainsley, why were you throwing things away?" her mother asked.

"I was getting rid of things I didn't want to look at anymore," she said. "I know it sounds silly, but... I was throwing out my lingerie."

Her mother looked sympathetic and understanding, but Cameron looked confused. "Why would you throw away your lingerie?" he asked.

Ainsley glared. "You haven't caused enough problems already this morning?"

Agatha interrupted before the banter could continue. "Ainsley, you've bought nursing bras already. Did you have them with the rest?"

It turned out that she still had those, at least, so Ainsley managed to get off to her court appearance in time. Seth had been notified, and to Ainsley's mild surprise he actually showed up. After everything he'd said about her, she hadn't expected him to come into the same room with her again by choice. She ignored him entirely, speaking only to the judge and the lawyers in the room. It might have been childish, but it seemed like the only way to avoid screaming at him.

Seth had no objections to the sealing of the records, so the meeting was brief, and Ainsley was back home before long. Her mother was getting lunch ready. "Oh, good," she said, seeing the food on the kitchen counters. "My stomach's been growling since I left."

Cameron came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. "You were so distraught this morning you forgot to eat breakfast," he remarked.

Ainsley was about to glare at him for the reminder, but then his fingers began to massage her shoulders and she let out a happy little sigh. "After I finished explaining to the judge why I wanted the records sealed I asked him if I could have the apple he had sitting on his desk. All I could think of was Sam Seaborn telling me I ruined great arguments by asking for food at the end."

He chuckled. The sound was deep and familiar and comfortable.

Ainsley's mother asked him to help her get things down from the upper cabinets, and Cam pulled away from Ainsley. Immediately she missed the warmth and pressure of his hands, and again she sighed.

* * *

  
After lunch Cameron started loading Ainsley's car with some boxes full of nice-looking fabric. Upon closer examination they appeared to be fancy dresses, including one that might have been her wedding gown but Cam wasn't asking. They drove to the local high school a couple miles away, where Cam again got to move boxes for Ainsley.

They were met in the lobby by a small woman and two boys. The teacher introduced herself and then instructed the boys to take the boxes from Cam. "There's eight dresses in there," Ainsley explained as the boys headed somewhere in the school.

"Are you sure you want to give them away?" the teacher asked. "It sounded like these were pretty nice clothes."

Ainsley shrugged. "I'm sure you'll be able to use them somehow in the drama program," she replied. "I really don't want them in my closet anymore." The teacher still looked dubious, and Ainsley patted her stomach. "Besides, after this kid is born I might not fit in them ever again."

"Well," the woman said, "if you insist..."

Ainsley did, and she and Cam left the high school rather quietly. "Do you feel better?" Cam asked as he helped her into the car.

She had an odd look on her face, but then she looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah, I do."

They made it all the way to the stoplight at the end of the block, Cam drumming on the steering wheel as he waited for the light to change, before Ainsley said, "Cameron, I don't want to alarm you."

"What?" Cameron snapped, looking at her as she squirmed.

"I think I've gone into labor."

The light turned green and Cam floored it. "Where's the hospital?" he demanded.

"No, take me home."

"Ainsley –"

"Labor takes an average of eighteen hours," she interrupted, sounding irritated. "Besides, if I'm not panicking you shouldn't be panicking."

"Listen, Ainsley," he said as he reluctantly headed toward the house instead of the hospital, "all I know about babies being born is what happens in movies, and babies are always born in cars in movies."

"I'll give you the video my doctor made me watch."

"No, thank you."

Cameron tried to drive as sanely as possible as Ainsley dug out her phone. "Mom?" she said a few moments later. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure my water broke." Cameron kept his eyes on the road, not wanting to know precisely what that meant. Well, he knew, but he didn't want to _know_.

"No, Mom, we're coming home from the high school. We'll be there in a few minutes," Ainsley continued. "I have a bag packed in the hall closet downstairs. The blue duffel bag with white piping. Could you get it and bring it out when we get there?"

By the time Cam pulled into the driveway, Agatha was out of the house and walking down the steps toward the car. She was asking Ainsley how she was feeling even before she'd gotten into the car.

Aside from Ainsley's clipped instructions of how to get to the hospital, no one talked all the way there. When they got there, he let Ainsley and her mom out at the door, and as he went to park the car, he wondered if the knot in his stomach was normal for someone who wasn't actually the father. Or in any way related to the baby about to be born.


	4. Chapter 4

  
Since things seemed to be moving fairly slowly, Ainsley asked Cameron to come into the delivery room. She was in between contractions, but so far things didn't seem too bad. He was rather obviously not looking at the end of the bed, and frankly she was glad he wasn't.

"Where's your mom?" he asked, sitting down in the chair next to her bed.

"Dean called," she replied, smiling brightly. "He drove up here to surprise me, I guess, and then no one was at the house and he had to call to find out where I was. Mom's waiting for him downstairs."

"Dean's coming?" Cam asked. "Man, I haven't seen him in years."

Ainsley hummed. "Maybe it's for the best he couldn't surprise me."

"Yeah, I showed up unannounced and you burst into tears. A little out of character but I'll give it to you considering the situation."

She nodded and glanced at her cell phone, which was sitting on the table behind Cameron. "I keep expecting Seth to call."

"Think he's got you under surveillance or something?" Cam asked. From his tone she thought he was only half serious.

"If he had me under surveillance I'd think he would have barged in here already." Ainsley sighed. "He's going to look like an idiot if he tries to sue for custody." At Cam's frown, she explained, "He stood up in front of television cameras and accused me of adultery. He can't have it both ways."

A contraction came and Ainsley's breath caught. Cameron watched her in concern until it was over, even though he looked like he didn't have a clue as to what he could be doing to help. "You really never found out what childbirth is like?" she asked, gesturing for the cup of water next to the bed.

"Ainsley, it's not like I have a kid on some alien planet," he told her as he gave her the ice water. "There was some scuttlebutt that General O'Neill does, but I've never really believed that."

"Really?" she said. "I'm not sure I would have pegged him as the type."

"He was stuck on some planet for about three months," Cam replied. "The only time I was stuck for even half that long, I was mostly dead for a while. Wasn't really in any condition to be romancing the ladies. Plus I'm pretty sure someone would have killed me for it."

Ainsley started laughing, but that hurt and she winced. "Ain?" Cam prompted.

"I'm fine, really."

He looked unconvinced, but changed the subject. "I assume you have names picked out," he remarked.

She made a face. "We did, but..."

Her slight emphasis on the pronoun in that sentence made Cameron understand immediately. She wasn't too keen on using the names she and Seth had negotiated. "I'm not very creative, but I could maybe help you brainstorm," he suggested.

Ainsley smiled a little. "Not Melissa," she said. "Three of the women who worked for me at the White House had babies in the last two years, and all three of them had girls and named them Melissa."

He chuckled. "What about a boy?"

"I was thinking about Matthew, after my dad," she replied. "Dad's been gone a long time, but I feel like he'd be happy about that."

"He would be," Cameron assured her.

He reached for her hand and they sat there quietly for a moment. "I'm at a total loss for a girl's name," she said.

Cameron shrugged. "Mom told me once that if I'd been a girl, they would have named me Lila."

Ainsley took a moment to absorb that, and in that moment Cam got a panicked look on his face. "No, you're not naming the baby Lila."

"Why not?" Ainsley asked, smiling. "It's a sweet name."

"Because that would have been me if I'd been a girl!"

"If you'd been a girl we wouldn't be having this conversation, because we wouldn't have met," she pointed out.

"Still," he pressed. "What were you planning on for a girl's name?"

Ainsley curled her nose up. " _Caroline_. I finally gave up trying to convince Seth how trite it was for a North Carolina representative to name his daughter that and just started hoping for a boy. 'Andrew' seemed pretty safe from mocking."

Cam waited a moment before speaking. "Are you really going to name the baby Lila?"

"Not if it's a boy, Cam. Not if it's a boy."

He groaned.

* * *

  
Cameron heard Dean Hayes coming down the hall long before the man actually came into the room. Dean's light hair looked to have more grey in it than Cam's had, but otherwise he looked little altered since the last time Cam had seen him.

Dean marched into the room, to Ainsley's side, with a deeply concerned look on his face, not even noticing Cam. He just sat there, highly amused, as Dean took Ainsley's hand. "You okay, sis?" he asked.

"I'm okay, Dean," she replied. Cam glanced at the other end of the room to see Agatha watching her children fondly. "As unlikely as it may seem, I'm okay."

Dean smoothed back his sister's hair, and finally he looked across the bed. "Hi, I don't think I –" He stopped abruptly and looked to Ainsley and then back. "Cam?"

He started moving around the bed while Cameron got out of his chair. "Good to see you, buddy," Cam said, pulling him into a brief hug instead of going for a handshake. "It's been what, fifteen, sixteen years?"

"Man, of all the people I expected to see today," Dean replied, pulling away. "What in the world are you doing here? I thought you were stationed in Colorado or something."

"I am," Cam said, nodding. "Been assigned to Stargate Command for a few years now. I mouthed off to my boss a week ago and got sent out here for a temporary duty assignment."

"You mouthed off to Admiral Harper?" Ainsley said, drawing their attention. "You didn't tell me that part."

"Yeah, see, we were off-world last week at a paleontological dig –"

"That's dinosaurs," Dean interrupted.

"I was getting to that," Cam replied, grinning. "Long story short, a baby dinosaur wandered up to Vala and wanted to play fetch."

Ainsley started giggling, but like before she winced when she did. "No more making me laugh, Cam, please?"

"I can only promise so much," he teased. "Anyway, as a joke I decided to ask my CO if we could keep him."

Dean just shook his head, while Ainsley sighed. "I only know Kate Harper by reputation," she said, "but I can tell you that was pretty dumb."

Cam opened his mouth to respond, but then Ainsley let out a little whimper and squeezed her eyes shut. It was just as well, because what he was about to say would have been hopelessly sappy.

The doctor and a nurse came in while the contraction was still going on, and Doctor Holt said, "Ainsley, how are you doing?"

"This kind of isn't a good time," Ainsley said, panting.

"I know the last time I saw you, you weren't too keen on the idea of not delivering the baby naturally, but I really think we need to consider it," she said gently.

"You want to do a C-section?" Ainsley asked, in the small voice Cam had always associated with her losing her nerve.

Holt nodded. "You're a very small woman, Ainsley," she said. "With the baby's head measurement, I'm... concerned. It's safer for you and for the baby. Your recovery time will be longer, but in the long run I think this is the right decision."

Ainsley looked worriedly at her mother for a few moments, and then she nodded. "Okay."

She reached blindly for Cam's hand because he was nearest. He squeezed back because it was the least he could do.

Agatha asked if she could go with Ainsley and then had to go change into surgical garb. There were consent forms to be signed, and then Dean and Cam decided to walk with Ainsley as the orderlies rolled her down to the surgery prep area.

At a big set of double doors, a nurse stopped them. "I'm sorry, gentlemen," she said to Dean and Cam, "but you can't come further."

"All right," Dean replied, and then he turned to Ainsley. Cam turned away while Dean spoke a few encouraging words to his sister, and then it was his turn.

"You're going to be fine," he said, somewhat inanely, "and so is the baby."

"I didn't want to do it this way," she confessed softly. "I'm a little scared."

He leaned over the bed a little. "Do you trust your doctor?" She nodded, so he continued, "Then there's nothing to worry about."

Dean had turned away just as he had a few moments earlier, and Cam laid his hand on her stomach one last time. Then, on impulse, he kissed her forehead and smoothed her hair from her face. "Dean and I will be waiting, okay?" he said. "You'll probably have to mediate a fight over who gets to hold the baby first."

That got her to smile just for a moment, and Cam stood up again. The orderlies started moving, and Cam and Dean watched as Ainsley was taken down the hall and the big doors closed.

They wandered around to find the waiting room, and then they sat around catching up on old times. Cam told Dean about his current team at the SGC, and Dean told Cam about his job and his wife and children. Cam got the feeling that they both thought they had maybe missed out on something that the other had.

"So," Dean said, when they'd been talking for more than half an hour, "you and my sister."

Cameron sighed. "Dean, she's –"

"She's never been like a sister to you," Dean interrupted. "Maybe like a little kid to you, but not like a sister."

"That wasn't what I was going to say," Cameron said.

"Cam, I'm not going to guess what's ever gone on between you and my little sister," he replied, and Cam couldn't help but notice how Dean kept emphasizing the fact that Ainsley was his sister. "I also don't care where it goes from here. I just want you to be careful with her right now."

Cameron fought the urge to squirm. He was a grown man. He didn't need to feel pressured by his friend's brother just because he might have kissed said friend. And possibly had a couple of highly inappropriate fantasies about her. It wasn't any of Dean's business.

Thankfully, he was spared having to respond to any of it when a nurse came in and asked for them. Both men stood up and joined him in the hallway. "Ms. Hayes' mother wanted me to update you," he said. "The surgery went well. Ms. Hayes has been moved to the recovery room. The baby and Mrs. Hayes are with her."

Cam couldn't stop grinning, but Dean got down to business. "Well, what is it? Boy or girl?"

The nurse shook his head. "I was sworn to secrecy."

"How long till we can see them?" Cam asked.

"She'll be in the recovery room for about two hours," he explained.

They thanked the nurse and let him get back to work, and the two men looked at each other. "Hey, I bet your mother has Ainsley's phone with her. It was still on," Cam remarked.

"If Ainsley wants to tell us what the baby is in person," Dean said, "she's going to tell us in person. Mom's not going to spill the beans."

"No," Cam replied, "but if we've got some time, we can stumble around the area for a while and find some real food to sneak up to her. You know Ainsley's going to be hungry once the morphine starts to wear off."

* * *

  
Ainsley was, in fact, starving by the time she got more lucid, and no amount of hospital Jell-o was enough to stave off her hunger. When Cam and Dean showed up with food she nearly cried for joy. Dean seemed a bit alarmed by this, but Cam just laughed at her.

The surgery was kind of a blur already. It seemed like they'd barely started when she heard her baby screaming as a doctor held it up to show her and then took it away. They'd just gotten her finished up when the baby was brought back to her, and for a good ten minutes all she could do was hold her baby and cry.

The idea of being a mother, of bringing a life into the world, was daunting enough to begin with. Now Ainsley was actually more than a little worried about it. She was doing this on her own now – as long as she could help it, Seth's name wasn't going anywhere on the birth records. That had brought a note of bitterness in the recovery room when she sat there with her mother and her child. It should have been Seth, if Seth had been the man she'd loved.

But right now, she had her family, her dear friend, and a contraband milkshake. She wasn't really going to be doing this alone.

She was lying in bed, partly elevated, and holding Dean's hand when one of the nurses came in. "Ainsley, can we bring the baby in?"

Ainsley smiled brightly and nodded, and the nurse stepped out for a moment to wheel in a cart that had what looked like a Rubbermaid bin mounted on top. Dean and their mother moved out of the way as the nurse lifted the tiny bundle and laid it in Ainsley's arms. As the nurse left the room, Ainsley pulled the blanket down from the baby's face and said, "Dean, Cameron, come meet Lila."

She expected a groan or more teasing from Cameron, but instead there was a soft look on his face as he looked down on the tiny baby. "She's beautiful, Ainsley," he said, and Dean concurred.

Lila seemed to be dozing in very short spurts, or her eyes weren't adjusted to the way the world was lit. Every once in a while she would open her eyes, or sometimes only one eye, to the amusement of both Dean and Cam, and then close them again. "Hi, sweetheart," Ainsley said, hefting the baby a little higher to get more comfortable. The incision starting to get sore.

Lila made a tiny little noise and closed her eyes again. Dean reached over and touched her hand, and her fist closed around his finger. "Hey there, little lady," he said. "You've got quite a grip."

Ainsley smiled and let Dean lift Lila from her arms. Lila fussed a bit but Dean, having three children of his own, was quick to soothe her. "I just remembered," he said. "I brought my camera in."

Cameron picked up Dean's bag and fished out the camera. He took a couple pictures of Lila before turning the camera on Ainsley. "Hey," she said, as he took a picture, "I look terrible, Cam."

"You really don't," he told her. Ainsley met his eyes and for a long moment they just stared at each other. There was a lot they hadn't talked about, maybe going back years, and they were things they needed to discuss, but for now Ainsley would just take his compliment.

After a couple more pictures of the baby, he put the camera away. "Okay, Dean, time's up," he said. "Hand over the baby and no one gets hurt."

He winked at Ainsley; she rolled her eyes. Then he took the baby from Dean, and Ainsley just watched him. "Hi there, Tinkerbell," he said as she sneezed. "It's been a big day, hasn't it?"

Cameron wasn't kidding. It was early evening, and just that morning she'd been sitting in the judge's chambers asking for her divorce records to be sealed. There had also been the bra incident that morning, but at least she'd been prepared for nursing the baby when she reached the hospital.

They stayed there together with the baby long into the evening, until Ainsley yawned hugely, and her mother declared that it was time she got some sleep. Dean and Cameron both wished her good night, but when Cameron leaned down to kiss her cheek, he also whispered, "You had to go and name her that?"

"Think of it as a compliment to your parents," she told him. "And – and thank you."

She blurted out the last part rather quietly, but she meant it wholeheartedly. Cameron had done so much for her in the last week, so much that she would always feel indebted to him. But he didn't seem to see it as a debt at all. "Anything you need, Ainsley," he replied, brushing his knuckles against her cheek.

Lila caught hold of his finger somehow, and Cameron leaned over to kiss her tiny hand. "We'll see you two in the morning."

That night, after everyone was gone and Lila had been taken back to the nursery, Ainsley quietly cried herself to sleep. It wasn't the first time it had happened in the last week and she was sure it wouldn't be the last, but this time it wasn't just because of the events of recent days. She had a beautiful little daughter now, and that alone was enough to make her cry in happiness too.

* * *

  
The next morning Cameron had to sit in on a conference call, and since he didn't know how long it was going to take, he told Agatha and Dean to go on to the hospital without him. The call went on for hours, and it was nearly lunchtime before he made it up to see Ainsley.

When he approached her room, all he heard was singing. After a few moments he realized it was a musical on the television. The privacy curtain was pulled across the end of the bed, and he knocked on the wall as he came in. "Ainsley?"

"Oh, come in, Cam," Ainsley replied. "No, wait –"

It was too late. Cameron came around the curtain and saw she was nursing Lila. He couldn't see much, but it was still more than he'd ever seen of Ainsley before, and he stepped back almost instinctively. There was some light rustling, and then Ainsley told him he could come around again.

He did so warily. She'd covered herself up a little more with a light blanket, though the baby's face was still unobstructed. Cameron just did his best not to look. He knew this was as natural as breathing, but right this minute he really, really did not need to be able to see Ainsley not fully clothed, even in the least sexual of contexts.

Instead, when he sat down in the chair next to her he turned his attention to the television. "So, musicals?"

"There's very little on television that's worth watching," she said. "Mom turned it over here and I just didn't bother changing the channel."

"Speaking of which," Cam began, "where'd your mom and brother go?"

"They're down in the cafeteria," Ainsley replied. "They just gave up on waiting for you to arrive."

"I grabbed something to eat before I left the house."

A big musical number was starting – Cameron couldn't be sure, but he thought this was _Seven Brides for Seven Brothers_ judging by the number of men running around – and neither he nor Ainsley said anything for a while. Then suddenly Ainsley laughed softly. Cam looked over to see her stroking under Lila's chin. "She fell asleep while she was eating," Ainsley explained.

"Back home I used to have to feed the calves occasionally," Cam replied. "They'd do that too. Mom always told me that was normal."

Ainsley looked at him like he was crazy. "Thank you, Cameron, for comparing my baby to a cow."

"Well, some of those calves were awfully pretty," he told her, grinning.

Lila woke up long enough to be burped, and at that point someone came in with Ainsley's lunch. She passed the baby over to Cameron and turned the television off before starting into her lunch.

"She's tiny, isn't she?" Cam said.

"She's about average," Ainsley replied. "Except for her head, of course."

"Just means she'll be extra-smart like her momma," he remarked, winking at Ainsley as Lila wiggled a bit.

"I'm fairly certain there's no correlation between IQ and hat size," she said dryly. "But yeah, she does seem little."

Cameron would have been happy just to sit there with Lila for as long as he could, but soon he noticed that Ainsley was picking at her food. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"You're not going to believe me if I say I'm not hungry, are you?"

He leaned over and looked at the food. "I might. That food looks pretty bad."

She set her fork down with a sigh. "I'm starving, actually. But I need to talk to you about something, and it might be difficult to find another moment alone now that Mom and Dean are both here."

Cameron sat back and met her eyes cautiously. "You want to talk about the other night."

Ainsley nodded. "We sort of talked about it Saturday morning, but..."

She didn't need to finish her sentence. He knew they hadn't really finished the conversation. He wasn't really sure where to start, but something came out of his mouth anyway. "Do you feel guilty about it?" he asked.

Ainsley was quiet for a moment. "Do you?"

"I don't know. I know I should." He looked down at Lila. "Good guys don't kiss other men's wives."

"What would you do if I weren't married?"

Her question was barely above a whisper, and Cam could understand. It wasn't exactly a hypothetical, and a friendship that had lasted more than half their lives could be dramatically affected by how he answered.

He took his time answering, even though he knew Ainsley was growing more nervous as the moments passed by silently. "I'm not good at talking," he began.

"So you're just not going to?"

There was a note of tension in her voice, like she was trying to suppress something. "That's not what I meant, Ainsley," he said gently. He didn't like seeing her awkward around him after all this time. "I meant I might not say this right."

She subsided and he continued, looking down at Lila, who'd fallen asleep again. "I think I'd regret it if I left in a few days and didn't talk to you again for a year," he said. "Every time I've regretted that, but this time..." Cam lifted his head. "How bad am I doing?"

Ainsley shrugged. "I don't know." There was another long pause, in which she stared at her food, and Cameron began to wonder if the conversation had died. Eventually, though, Ainsley said, "I don't feel guilty."

"What?"

"You asked if I felt guilty about it," she clarified. "I know I ought to, but I don't."

She didn't have to say anything else. Had it not been for Lila, Cameron might have moved to the edge of her bed and kissed her till they both forgot all the problems of the last eight days. He wanted to taste her mouth again. He wanted to feel her body pressed against his. He wanted to hear her whimper his name as he found every sweet spot from her jaw to her collarbone.

But it wasn't just Lila's presence that stopped him. Her very existence held him back too. Ainsley's life was more complicated now. Lila needed her mother, and Cam knew Ainsley needed the space to adjust to that.

Besides, he desperately didn't want to be the one Ainsley turned to for comfort, and left when the hard times were past.

"So maybe," Ainsley began, "when this is over..."

She left that hanging there and looked at Cam. He nodded minutely. "Yeah," he replied, a tremendous amount of hope in his voice. "Maybe."

* * *

  
Dean had to go back to Chapel Hill a couple days after the baby was born, and he left with the assurance that he'd be back with his family soon, maybe at Christmas. As Ainsley and Lila were both doing well, they went home on time. Cameron drove them away from the hospital slowly and cautiously, a sharp contrast to how he'd driven Ainsley there. Lila slept the whole way.

Days went by and her friends and former coworkers stopped by to see the baby. Ostensibly they were there to visit her as well, but Ainsley knew the truth and Cam liked to tease her about that.

She was glad, frankly, that Cameron seemed as confused as she did about their relationship and where it was going. She got the sense from him that he didn't want to mess things up, and Ainsley had a horrible feeling that things could get messed up so easily. Though she knew the breakup of her marriage had very little to do with her own decisions, she was still feeling shaken by this, like she'd walked into a war zone. The initial shock had worn off, but she knew there were still battles to be fought. The idea of pursuing whatever this was with Cam right now was a little too daunting to consider.

Yet at the same time, she felt a growing reluctance to see him leave, even though she knew he had to get back to his own life.

When Lila was a week old, Cameron and her mom had had pictures of Lila printed somewhere, and they were sitting at the kitchen table putting them into frames when the doorbell rang. Being closest to the door, Ainsley got up to answer it. On the other side was Donna Moss, but with her were somber-looking men in black.

"Hi, Ainsley," Donna greeted, stepping inside. "They're Secret Service agents. The First Lady and I tried to explain we were just going to see a baby, but they insisted on scoping out the place."

Ainsley looked outside to see the familiar black SUV parked in her driveway. The two agents pushed past her into the house, and she saw a couple more roaming around outside. "Wait," she said, her brain catching up. "The First Lady's here?"

Donna nodded. "Miranda asked if she could come too. I hope that's okay."

She was about to say it might have been nice if they'd called ahead – she was wearing sweatpants, for heaven's sake – but it was too late. The agents declared the house safe and Helen Santos, wearing jeans and a sweater, came up to the house with her eleven-year-old daughter. Miranda was carrying an enormous flower arrangement. "Hi, Ainsley," Helen said. "Can we come in?"

Resigned to her fate, Ainsley said, "Sure."

Ainsley had worked in the Santos White House for nearly five years, but her interaction with the First Lady had primarily been restricted to social events. Not being Abbey Bartlet, Helen rarely got herself into any kind of trouble that needed the personal attention of the White House Counsel.

Cameron jumped up from his chair immediately. Ainsley suspected her mother would have too had she not been holding Lila. "Ma'am," Ainsley said, gesturing toward the kitchen table, "my mother, Agatha Hayes, and an old friend of the family, Colonel Cameron Mitchell."

"It's nice to meet you," Helen said. "I'm Helen, and this is my daughter, Miranda."

Miranda hefted the flowers up on the table and looked at Ainsley. "We brought you flowers, Ms. Hayes," she said.

"Thank you, Miranda. They're beautiful."

"Matt wanted to come too," Helen said, "but Sam suspected he was just trying to get out of a meeting on fruit production in South America."

Ainsley laughed a little. "I'm glad he didn't. I'm embarrassed enough to have the First Lady in my house when I'm wearing sweatpants."

Helen waved her off and went around the table to look at the baby. "She's a beauty, Ainsley," she remarked. "Mrs. Hayes, did Ainsley look like this as a baby?"

Agatha picked up an old photograph that was sitting on the table. "I certainly think so," she said, handing the picture to the First Lady.

Helen was cooing over the pictures when she looked up at Cameron curiously. "Why's he still standing?" she asked Ainsley.

"Cam, you don't have to stand the entire time she's here," Ainsley told him.

He looked around at the women in the room a little sheepishly. "Some habits are hard to break, ma'am," he said to Helen. "Pilots get to be more independent than most of the military, but there's a certain amount of decorum that gets drilled into you when you're not looking."

"Pilot?" Helen repeated, perking up.

"You couldn't have left that part out?" Donna muttered.

"What'd I do?" Cam asked.

"Mrs. Santos likes pilots," Ainsley said, trying not to giggle at the look of panic on Cam's face.

"Married one, actually," Helen said. "Marine pilot, though."

Cameron scoffed.

That, of course, turned into a heated discussion of the Air Force versus Marine aviation, and Ainsley retreated to the kitchen with Donna. "Sorry about dropping in on you like this," Donna quietly said as they got glasses down and Ainsley pulled out a pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator. "But Helen needed a break, and this is the only time of year she gets a vacation from being White House cruise director."

"Cruise director?"

"I'm not sure, but she may have stolen that from C. J. somehow," Donna remarked. "At any rate, Thanksgiving is when the press secretary has the crazy job and she gets to relax. She wanted to get out of the White House. I wanted to come see the baby. It was convenient for us if not for you."

When they brought the tea to the table, along with apple juice for both Miranda and Ainsley, Helen was holding Lila. "Don't you just wish they could stay like this forever?" Helen asked.

"Hey," said Miranda.

"Sorry, Miranda," Helen replied. "You and Peter were both much cuter as babies."

Miranda pouted, and Donna put her arm around the girl. "Someday you'll have kids and be able to say that kind of thing to them," Donna told her.

"It's what moms do," Cameron said.

"Says the only man in the conversation," Agatha remarked, and everyone laughed.

* * *

  
The rest of the visits they got weren't quite as startling as the First Lady's, but Cam figured that Ainsley would be glad when her life settled down into what was going to be normal for her. She didn't talk about Seth much, but the bitterness he'd observed before the baby was born seemed to be dissipating. She had something else to focus on, and that was definitely a good thing.

Ten days after Lila's birth, Cam got a call from Admiral Harper on his cell phone and took it out to the back porch. It was growing colder every day, but he didn't mind much. Beyond the back fence he could see horses grazing in the pasture. Ainsley had told him once that they'd bought this place so she could start riding again.

Kate's call was brief – orders often were – and Cam went back inside to talk to Ainsley. He found her in the nursery, standing at the window and swaying gently. Judging by the look on Lila's face, Ainsley had just nursed her and was probably trying to get her to sleep.

She sighed a little and looked up at him. Cameron frowned. "What's wrong?" he asked, stepping into the room cautiously.

"Just thinking," she told him. He knew by now what that meant.

He came up to them and laid one hand on Ainsley's shoulder. He stroked one finger over the back of Lila's tiny hand and then her palm, making her fingers curve around his. Ainsley smiled, but then her eyes started to water. Cameron hadn't seen her cry since the baby was born, but he thought he understood. The whole situation just wasn't fair for her or for her daughter. The only person who was likely to get what he deserved was her husband.

Cameron didn't say anything, just moved his hand from one shoulder to the other and pulling her into half an embrace. Ainsley leaned into it after a moment, and he kissed the top of her head. "I just had a call from Admiral Harper," he said softly. Lila was holding her eyes wide open, but every blink was slower and slower. "I'm going to have to go back to Colorado tomorrow."

Ainsley nodded. "Well, it's not like that wasn't predictable," she said, pulling a little bit away.

"Yeah. Harper thinks I need to do the job for which I'm paid."

She laughed, though it was just a brief huff of air. "You'll be back."

"We always say that. It never seems to happen."

His hand was gently stroking the top of Lila's head now, and Ainsley cast a significant glance down at her newborn daughter almost sleeping in her arms. "You'll be back."

"You're probably right," Cam replied, chuckling lightly. Then he met Ainsley's eyes abruptly and earnestly. "Can I hold her?"

She nodded. In the ten days Lila had been alive, they'd done this enough to figure out how best to hand off the baby, but that didn't mean Lila agreed to it. She fussed, surprisingly loud for a person with such tiny lungs, until Cameron patted her bottom and snuggled her against his chest. Lila subsided after a few moments, her head lolling against him and her eyes closing at last.

Ainsley walked over to the crib to get a blanket for Lila. As she draped it over the sleeping baby, she said, "I need to move out of here." He looked up at her, both surprised and confused, and she clarified, "That's more or less what I was thinking about when you came in."

"Oh." His gaze drifted back down to Lila. "Can't really blame you. This house is kind of big for just you and her, and I guess there's a lot of stuff in here you don't want to remember."

Ainsley nodded. "I probably can't do anything with the house until the divorce is final, but I can at least start looking."

"Think you might leave D. C.?"

"I doubt it. Depending on how the divorce works out I might actually have to go back to work somewhere."

They hadn't talked about it much, but he figured she really didn't want to do that for a while, at least. "Well, hey, if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me," he said.

Ainsley smiled. "You're coming to help when I move out of here."

Cameron chuckled. "Wouldn't miss it for the world, Ainsley."

* * *

  
Ainsley woke in the middle of the night, though it was not Lila who woke her. Instead, it was the sound of the front door being opened. Getting out of bed, she threw her robe on and went downstairs to investigate.

She got into the living room just in time to see Cameron come back in. He was in uniform. "I was going to wake you," he said. "My flight's been moved up. I was taking my stuff out to the car."

Ainsley just nodded, not knowing what to say. The last two and a half weeks had been so tumultuous, but she'd had Cameron there to anchor her as a huge part of her life fell apart around her. She didn't want him to leave.

"Listen," he said, "you were right last night. This time it's different. It's not going to be three years before I see you again."

"I hope not," she said softly.

Cam walked up to her and rested his hands on her shoulders. "I know things are kind of a mess right now," he said. "But if you need someone to talk to, call me. I don't care what time it is. If it's the middle of the night and you can't sleep, call me."

"You're not the easiest person to get a hold of," she pointed out.

"Then keep calling," he replied. "And if I still don't call you back, I'm sure you can get in touch with Admiral Harper to get her to pester me about it."

Her eyes were starting to water again as she considered what he was offering. "Cam, I don't know what I would have done without you here," she said. "You've done so much for me already."

"You're my friend, Ainsley," he said gently. "You always have been, and you always will be. This was just what we're supposed to do for each other."

There was more she wanted to say, but a lump had formed in her throat and she wasn't sure she could speak without crying. Instead, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and he hugged her back so tightly that her feet were dangling off the floor. She breathed in his familiar scent, feeling safe and loved and she didn't want this moment to end.

"You take care of that baby girl," he whispered. "And you take care of yourself."

Ainsley nodded, and he set her down, though he seemed reluctant. "Come see me at Christmas?" she offered.

"I'll try," he said. "Provided saving the galaxy doesn't interfere."

It was only when the grandfather clock down the hall chimed the hour that they let go of each other. "Take care of yourself, Cam," she said.

He squeezed her hands and nodded, backing toward the door. He started to say something, but then Lila started crying upstairs. "Go on," he said. "I'll call you in the morning."

She turned and hurried up to the nursery. Lila stopped crying almost as soon as Ainsley had picked her up, and she carried the baby to the window. There she saw Cameron backing his car out of the driveway, and that was that. As abruptly as he'd reappeared in her life, he was gone again. Before this time, it had been three years since she'd seen him.

As she set Lila down to change her diaper, Ainsley hoped he wouldn't be gone so long again.

* * *

  
When Cameron's flight landed, he considered briefly going home, but instead he drove to the base. He had a meeting to attend early in the morning, and he figured he'd get more sleep if he just slept in the base quarters.

The next morning, he showered and brought breakfast and coffee to his office. He wasn't entirely sure what this meeting was about, so he needed to read up on it, along with getting himself a little more awake. He'd gotten used to getting up later, so he had a feeling this was going to be a rough morning.

He was just finished with his coffee and his reading when there was a light rap at the open doorway. Cam looked up to see the admiral standing there, and he got to his feet immediately. "At ease, Colonel," Admiral Harper said. "When did you get back?"

Cam settled back into his chair and started tidying his desk a bit. "Late last night," he replied. "It's about the same distance from Peterson home as it is from Peterson here, so I just stayed here last night."

Kate nodded, stepping into the room and approaching his desk slowly. "How's your friend doing?"

"Ainsley? I think she's doing all right." He glanced at the photograph of Lila now on his desk, one he'd taken the day she was born. "Though she flipped out a little the other day when the First Lady showed up to see the baby."

The admiral smiled a little. "The First Lady has a thing for pilots, as I recall."

"Don't remind me," Cam replied, groaning. "At least Lila was there to distract her."

"Is that what she named the baby?"

"Yeah."

"That's a pretty name." Kate came around his desk, something she never did, and then she smiled. "You have pictures of the baby on your desk already?"

"A picture, and I happen to think it's cute," he protested. Lila was cuddled up to Ainsley and yawning in the picture.

She reached over and picked up the frame. "That's sweet," she said. "You really weren't kidding when you said you had a thing for married, blonde Republicans."

Cameron snatched it away from her.

Kate laughed and walked away. "The briefing's in fifteen minutes," she said. "I need you to take SG-1 back to M74-289 today. It shouldn't be more than an overnight trip, if that long."

"Yes, ma'am," Cameron replied. "I'll be down in the briefing room in a few minutes."

The admiral nodded to him and left. After he set the picture of Lila back on his desk with the pictures of his family, Cam reached for the telephone and called Ainsley.


End file.
